The Last Man (1) - Recap

Sheppard goes on his own to meet with the Genii to get information on Teyla’s whereabouts. The Genii don’t show up and Sheppard meets with Lorne’s team before heading back through the Gate to Atlantis. He steps through and finds himself in an abandoned facility. The temperature is up and when he finds a window, he opens it to discover that Atlantis is sitting in the middle of a vast desert.

Sheppard tries to raise someone on the radio and ends up with an enigmatic Rodney. Rodney has Sheppard go to the hologram and reveals that he is in fact of a hologram of the base computers, with Rodney’s aged appearance. The hologram explains that Sheppard’s wormhole passed through a solar flare and sent him 48,000 years forward in time. He explains that Sheppard will have to go into the stasis pods for a thousand years until a similar solar flare emerges from the sun so that he can go back in time to the point where he left.

As they go to the stasis room, the hologram explains that things went downhill after Sheppard disappeared in this time line. Michael killed Teyla and used her baby to accelerate and perfect his breeding program, as well as further develop the Hoffan drug. Michael then took advantage of the Wraith factions’ internal squabbling and eliminated them.

Sheppard and the hologram discover that sand has totally blocked off the stasis chamber and there’s no other way through inside the base. Sheppard decides to go outside but a sand storm has sprung up and he’s forced to wait. While he does so, the hologram explains that the IOA limited the military reinforcements to aid the Pegasus galaxy, but assigned Samantha Carter a new cruiser, the Pegasus. She took it out and performed a series of hit-and-run attacks on Michael’s forces before he lured her into a trap. With her dying breath, she beamed the rest of her crew to a nearby planet and then rammed the Wraith Hive ships, taking out three of them.

While they wait, the hologram checks his calculations and discovers that the sun is running out of fuel, which means that it is expanding. It will destroy Atlantis in 500 years, but they figure out a way to use the solar-powered generators to boost Atlantis’ shields out a way to protect it until the proper flare is created. With his food running out and no sign of the sandstorm ending, Sheppard decides to go outside. He stays in contact with the hologram by radio and asks what happened to Ronon. The hologram explains that Ronon left Atlantis and formed a volunteer strike team of Pegasus natives. They located one of Michael’s hybrid laboratories and prepared to destroy it, and ran into their sometime ally Todd the Wraith. Todd is also trying to destroy Michael for attacking the Wraith, but when reinforcements arrive Ronon gets his people out. He and Todd then go on a suicide run, holding off the hybrids long enough to plant the explosives and destroy the entire base... including themselves.

Sheppard makes it through the storm and back inside near the stasis room. The hologram programs a crystal with the coordinates to Teyla’s location, and Sheppard wonders what happened to McKay. The hologram explains that the IOA took over Atlantis and put Woolsey in charge. They ordered the recall of base personnel to Atlantis to avoid drawing Michael’s attention. Woolsey also cut off most of the medical funding, preventing Keller from finding a cure to the Hoffan drug. She quit and Rodney went back to Earth with her, where they fell in love. Things looked good for a while until Keller caught a disease due to her weakened immune system after dealing with the Hoffan drug. Rodney decided the only way to save the situation was to alter the timeline over Keller’s objections. Rodney then spent 25 years developing the time travel equations, with the help of his sister, and finally came up with a plan. With Major (now General) Lorne’s permission he used the Stargate to finish the experiment and determine how to return Sheppard to his proper time.

With everything ready, Sheppard goes into the stasis pod and waits the thousand years so that he can then go back to the moment he left and emerge in Atlantis. He gives Sam and Rodney the info on Teyla’s location and once they confirm his identity, he, Ronon, Rodney, and a squad go to the planet. They find an abandoned building and no sign of Teyla, and set off a trap. Explosions rock the building as it begins to cave in around them...

(to be continued)


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