Odyssey

"The Tau'ri vessel is most powerful"

- Gavos

The Odyssey is Earth's second 304 class battlecruiser, replacing the Prometheus as Earth's primary planetary defense and exploration vessel in the Milky Way.

Commanding Officers

 * Colonel Paul Emerson (2006)
 * Colonel Davidson (2007)
 * Major General Hank Landry (One mission in 2007)
 * Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell (Stargate: The Ark of Truth)

Known Crew

 * Major Marks - pilot
 * Major Womack - pilot

Introduction
"I can't think of a better first operational mission for the Odyssey than to bring home SG-1."

- Paul Emerson

After the destruction of the Prometheus, and with the Daedalus usually in the Pegasus Galaxy, Earth was left without a suitable ship for defense and exploration. The Odyssey, under construction at Area 51, was to fill this void. Under the command of Colonel Paul Emerson, the Odyssey was launched prematurely to retrieve SG-1 who had been captured off-world by operatives of the Lucian Alliance. The mission was a success, but the skills of the Odyssey had to be proven when SG-1 had to retrieve stolen Stargates from Ba'al. Intercepting Ba'al's Ha'tak, the Odyssey confronted both Ba'al's Ha'tak and three Lucian Ha'tak vessels. The Odyssey was able to retrieve the Stargates with assistance by SG-1 and was able to escape the battle between Ba'al and the Alliance.

The Odyssey was, again, sent out on duty to retrieve SG-1 and a group of IOA members who were trapped at the Gamma Site after R-75 insect specimens mass produced and became carnivorous. The Odyssey had orders to launch a neurotoxin onto the planet to eliminate the insects. However, due to a radioactive ionosphere, the Odyssey wouldn't be able to detect SG-1 and the representatives. When the group reached the Gamma Site unmanned outpost, Samantha Carter was able to boost a communications signal, which was detected by the Odyssey prior to launching of the neurotoxin. They beamed the group up moments before they were overrun by the insects.

Battle of P3Y-229
The Odyssey was later involved with the discovery of the second Ori Supergate. Joining the Korolev and a group of Tok'ra, Asgard, and Jaffa vessels at the gate, the Odyssey received assistance from Kvasir and his vessel to try to prevent the gate from dialing. The efforts failed, with four Ori motherships emerging through the Supergate which decimated the fleet.

The Odyssey suffered severe damage during the engagement, and withdrew to effect repairs and to ensure that someone would be left alive to warn Earth of the defeat. After retrieving Colonels Carter and Mitchell, the Odyssey faced a new threat in the three surviving Ha'Tak vessels of the Lucian Alliance, who believed that they had been intentionally tricked into joining the battle. The arrival of several Jaffa Ha'Tak allowed the Odyssey to beam Teal'c aboard, and prompted the Lucian vessels to retreat. SG-1 transfered to the Jaffa vessels to join an effort to attack the Ori ships which had invaded Chulak. Upon completing basic repairs, the Odyssey followed them to Chulak just in time to rescue SG:1 (now including Daniel Jackson and Vala, along with Bra'tac, and then returned to Earth.

Atlantis


As part of SG-1's quest to locate the Sangraal and counter the Ori invasion fleet, the Odyssey ferried SG-1 to the Pegasus Galaxy, ferrying supplies to Atlantis in the role commonly filled by the Daedalus. Using a black hole in Pegasus and a Stargate brought from the Milky Way, the ship attempted to dial in to the Ori Supergate by affecting a jump from a Stargate placed next to it by Teal'c. During the course of this mission, the ship came under attack by a Wraith hive ship, which they had failed to detect due to their proximity to the black hole. Unable to break clear of the gravity well in time, the crew opted instead to slingshot around the singularity; this tactic allowed them to break through the Wraith ship's beaming countermeasures and beam two nuclear warheads aboard; the resulting explosion also caused the wormhole to jump to the Supergate, destroying an Ori warship on the other side in the SGC's most decisive victory to date.

Backing SG-1
The Odyssey was sent to assist SG-1 in a recon mission to a planet known to have recently converted to Origin. They found that one of the Ori motherships had landed on the planet, and SG-1 attended on a gathering close by. They saw that Adria gave a motivating speech to those who remained after having rid the planet of the "unbelievers" who had resisted them. Suddenly a destructive energy wave began to sweep across the land. The Odyssey's sensors picked up the energy wave as it radiated from the Stargate, and the SG-1 was beamed away seconds before the wave swept over the crowd, killing everyone.

Sensors detected no more life signs on the planet, and SG-1 determined that the Dakara Superweapon had been the source of the destruction.

As SG-1 explored the warship, Emerson and his crew kept a close watch. Soon afterwards another of the Ori motherships arrived. But, the immediate threat appeared in the form of three ha'tak vessels manned by Jaffa who also wished to explore the empty warship. Because the Odyssey was the only remaining Earth ship in the galaxy, Emerson had to leave the area to escape detection.

Emerson left SG-1 behind on the warship, but he kept his ship nearby. When the Ori warship left the planet, Emerson determined that it was on its way to Dakara with SG-1 still onboard. He ordered the Odyssey to follow. Fortunately, he was correct, and he beamed the team onboard the Odyssey as Dakara was being destroyed by Adria who had survived the wave with the use of a personal defense shield. The Jaffa managed to get the device to emit one more wave against the Ori warship before Adria destroyed it, and Emerson quickly ordered that the Odyssey leave to escape the wave. All the Jaffa who remained on the planet and in the Ori warship died, but Adria, once again, survived.

Hijack


Some months later, while investigating reports of a second Supergate, the Odyssey fell into a trap by the Lucian Alliance. The Lucian operative Anateo lured the ship into the vicinity of a neutron star, severely weakening its defenses; the vessel there came under attack by three Lucian Ha'tak vessels and was chased into a minefield, crippling it. Anateo captured the vessel, killing Colonel Emerson and demanding that Colonel Carter repair the ship. She did, but not without surreptitiously freeing the crew and allowing SG-1 to retake the ship. The Lucian Alliance arrived to try to retake the ship, but thanks to Colonel Cameron Mitchell causing a distraction, Vala and Carter were able to fix the hyperdrive allowing the Odyssey to escape while one Lucian Alliance ship destroyed the other.

Further duties
After the Asuran occupation of Atlantis, the Odyssey was given one of the three ZPMs retrieved to help in the fight against the Ori. Soon after, it was dispatched under command of SG-1 to recover Doctor Daniel Jackson, who had been made into a Prior by Adria. Jackson, incarcerated aboard the ship, explained that he was trying to deliver Merlin's weapon to the Ori home galaxy, a plan that SG-1 eventually sought to undertake without him. Rather than be placed in stasis at the Antarctic Outpost, Jackson used Merlin's knowledge and his abilities as a prior to take over the ship, abducting General O'Neill and taking the vessel to assist. During the course of this mission, he also outfitted the Odyssey with a cloak. The mission succeded with Daniel using the ship's new cloak to bring it in undetected and beam to the Ori mothership where the rest of the team were. After defeating Adria, he had O'Neill, still onboard the Odyssey contact the Daedalus and have them blow up the Stargate in the Pegasus Galaxy and free up the Supergate. With that done Daniel sent the ship into the Supergate with the activated weapon with O'Neill beaming SG-1 to the Odyssey seconds before the ship went through the Supergate. The ship remained cloaked for some time near the Supergate and SG-1 and O'Neill was able to witness undetected the arrival of more Ori motherships before returning to Earth.

The Odyssey later delivered SG-1 to the base of operations of the Jaffa Arkad, whom Teal'c had left the SGC in order to kill; as Arkad was likely involved in a planned attack against Earth, it was worried that Teal'c's actions would have serious repercussions due to his association with the planet. After Teal'c succeeded in killing Arkad, the Odyssey acted on intelligence concerning the location from which the attack would be launched; encountering a massive stockpile of naquadah on the planet's surface, Colonel Davidson ordered an immediate attack to prevent any of the weapons from being evacuated.

After Adria was captured by Ba'al -- foiling an attempt by the SGC to do the same -- the Odyssey was dispatched to recover her. She was retrieved and imprisoned aboard the ship much as Jackson had been, but not before a Ba'al symbiote clone had taken control of her. She remained aboard the vessel as the Tok'ra attempted to remove the symbiote and replace it with one of theirs, an operation which failed resulting in Adria's death and ascension.

Legacy of the Asgard


"General, with your permission a number of Asgard are prepared to beam aboard immediately to begin installing various technological upgrades to this ship."

- Thor

The Odyssey, under the personal command of General Hank Landry, traveled to the Asgard homeworld of Orilla at the Asgard's request; there it was outfitted with the most advanced Asgard technology, including a new power core and beam weapons, as well as a database containing the sum of all Asgard knowledge. This was done as the entire Asgard race was near extinction; the Odyssey thus was entrusted with their legacy.

The upgrades had barely been installed before a trio of Ori motherships arrived, prompting the Asgard to destroy Orilla in a massive explosion. In the ensuing battle, the Odyssey used its new beam weapons to destroy one Ori ship before escaping into hyperspace. However, problems with the hyperdrive necessitated them to drop out into normal space, where they were again ambushed by a pair of Ori ships. Surmising that the Asgard upgrades were allowing the Ori vessels to track them, SG-1 was faced with abandoning the ship, along with all the knowledge and technology it possessed, or being destroyed along with it.

Back in the Milky Way, the crew was evacuated to P3X-474, an uninhabited planet that possessed a Stargate they could use to return to Earth; SG-1 and General Landry remained on the ship. After another battle in which the Odyssey destroyed a second Ori mothership, Colonel Carter managed to create a time dilation field around the Odyssey a fraction of a second before it would have been destroyed by an Ori energy beam weapon. There, the ship remained for decades of shipboard time as SG-1 attempted to find some way to prevent its destruction. Finally, they devised a means to use the energy from the Ori weapon's impact to reverse time back to shortly before the time dilation field was established, sending Teal'c back with the necessary modifications to disconnect the Asgard power core that the Ori ships were using to track them -- in essence, destroying the ship in order to save it. The plan succeeded and this time around the Odyssey moved away from the beam and jumped to hyperspace before it could hit and the Odyssey and the Asgard database made it back to Earth.

Ark of Truth


For SG-1's quest to find the Ark of Truth, the Odyssey was deployed through the Supergate to the Ori galaxy in an attempt to find the Ark of Truth. It transported Daniel, Vala and Tomin to a planet where they met with a man who, after being taken to the Odyssey, told them the location of the place that they believed the Ark to reside. Once there, however, an IOA representative used the Asgard Core to create a Replicator which spread and took over the ship which subsequently came under attack from four Ori motherships. The Replicators were destroyed with a built in self-destruct and the Ori ships backed off once the Ark was activated. The Odyssey then carted the Ark and SG-1 back to Earth where it was used to stop the Ori crusade once and for all.

Secret mission
"It's on some secret mission even I'm not supposed to know about."

- Steven Caldwell

In 2009, the Odyssey went on a secret mission that was so secret, Colonel Caldwell wasn't even supposed to know about it. Because of this mission, the Odyssey was unable to aid in Earth's defense when it was attacked by a ZPM powered Hive Ship, leaving the Apollo and Sun Tzu and Daedalus to face the Hive themselves.

Behind the scenes
The Odyssey is an ancient story about the Greek warrior Odysseus who was lost for a great many years returning from the Trojan war. This led to odyssey coming into common usage as a great journey. Based on the final episode of SG-1 the ship's name is appropriate based on historical literature.

Odyssey was the name of the command module of the Apollo 13 moon landing mission.