Sateda (episode)

"Sateda" is the fourth episode of the third season of Stargate: Atlantis.

Synopsis
Ronon Dex is recognized by the villagers he once visited during his time as a runner. After getting turned in by the villagers to the Wraith, he is implanted with another Wraith tracker and dropped off on his abandoned homeworld, Sateda, where he is forced to become a runner again.

Plot
During an off-world reconnaissance mission, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard's team discover a primitive village. One of the villagers sees Ronon Dex and shouts 'Wraithbringer!'. The villagers, armed with crossbows, open fire on the team, catching Dr. Rodney McKay in the posterior; Teyla Emmagan, Ronon, and Sheppard return warning shots as they retreat; unfortunately, all three are hit with tranquilizer darts, leaving only McKay to escape back to Atlantis.

Teyla, Ronon, and Sheppard awaken in an open-air cage, where Ronon is challenged by the village leader, Keturah. Among their village Ronon is called "the Wraithbringer". He has been to this planet before, when he was on the run from the Wraith; after arriving near death, he was nursed back to health by the villagers, unaware that he was implanted with a Wraith tracker. Soon after his arrival, the Wraith attacked, burning the village and culling many of the inhabitants.

The Wraith left Keturah with a contact device and the promise that his people would be spared from future cullings if, should he ever reappear, they turned Ronon in.

Back on Atlantis, an Major Elliot Rutherford unsuccessfully attempts to extract information from McKay, who is under the effects of a considerable amount of morphine.

Ronon attempts to convince the village leader to let Sheppard and Teyla go, eventually holding a knife against his own throat. His rather forceful apology and promise to try to make up for what happen convinces the villagers to let his companions go.

When the two return to Atlantis, they find an assembled team preparing to come to rescue them. They return to the planet immediately, but in the intervening time the village was destroyed and the inhabitants are all either dead or culled. Ronon is among those taken back to the Hive ship, where he is once again implanted with the tracking device and released onto a planet. The Wraith Leader promises that this is where he will die.

Ronon materializes on the surface and has a flashback to a retreat he had to order during the last days of his planet's defense against the Wraith. Then, he runs, trying to find shelter and weaponry. A shot from the Hive destroys the DHD, and a Wraith Dart flies over the city, dropping a young Wraith into one of the streets.

On Atlantis, Sheppard and Teyla assure the other rescue team members that Ronon is probably still alive, as the Wraith will most likely want to return to hunting him for sport. Teyla proposes that they attempt to intercept the subspace signal and find out where he is, and McKay starts to work on calibrating the Long range sensors to pick it up.

Inside a building on the planet's surface, Ronon finds an assortment of broken objects, among them a long, jagged pieces of broken glass and a variety of pipes. He has a flashback to his own home during the siege, and remembers Melena, his partner, who died in an explosion. Using a torn bedsheet, he ties the metal shard to the stick to make a primitive knife, and then moves downstairs into the cellar when he hears the door open. The Wraith follows him, closes the door to make the darkness total, and then begins to search. Almost immediately, Ronon leaps out and attacks, wrestling with his pursuer before killing him.

Back on Atlantis, Sheppard finds McKay finishing the calibration of the sensors; there are seven subspace transmitters broadcasting from various planets in the Pegasus Galaxy, but McKay is confident that he knows which one is Ronon – one signal is coming from Sateda, Ronon's home world.

Ronon continues to run, and eventually retreats into the city's sewers, followed by a Wraith tracking drone. As the Wraith walks in the sewers following the GPS tracker on Ronon, he finally comes to his exact location. Confused, the Wraith looks up where Ronon points a blaster down and shoots him point blank. Another shot is made to the probe, cutting off the video feed to the Wraith leader. Ronon then begins salvaging weapons and equipment left over from his world's final battle against the Wraith, all while he has disturbing flashbacks of the time where he was a soldier trying to fight off the Wraith. Eventually, the Wraith start sending squads of troops to hunt him down, but Ronon easily kills all of them. Eventually, the Wraith leader sends a large battalion to hunt Ronon down.

The situation looks hopeless for Ronon until Sheppard and the rest of the team arrive on a cloaked Puddle Jumper. They assist him in killing the Wraith troops, and Ronon taunts the Wraith leader, challenging him to come himself. Remembering his flashbacks, Ronon decides to stop running from his past and face it head on.

Ronon and the Wraith leader fight hand to hand, with Ronon obviously outmatched by the Wraith's superior strength. McKay and Beckett, having had enough (they'd wanted to help earlier but their fighting over who would go ended when all of the other Wraith are already dead and they're informed of that), fly in and uncloak the Jumper, and Dr. Carson Beckett shoots and kill the Wraith leader with a Drone weapon. Ronon thanks the team for helping him (even hugging Beckett), and after having the tracking device removed, returns with the rest of the team to Atlantis.

Notable Quotes
McKay: You know it's incredible how much we take for granted the simple things in life...like sitting.

Sheppard: Yeah, must be a real pain in the ass for you...

McKay: ...and how long did it take you to work that up?

Sheppard: Longer than I'll admit.

McKay: (Sedated) Excuse me, why am I lying here?

Beckett: You have an arrow, Rodney, in your gluteus maximus.

McKay: (Sedated) Oh. Well, that sounds painful. Gluteus maximus. Glueteus ... maximus. Oh my god. That's my ass, isn't it?

Beckett: Aye.

Sheppard: Hey, thought you might want this. (Hands Ronon his Particle magnum, Ronon takes it without saying anything) You're welcome!

McKay: That is the stupidest plan I have ever heard! Sheppard: I don't know, killing a bunch of Wraith really seems like a good idea to me! McKay: They outnumber you 25 to 3! Beckett: It's actually 22 to 3... 21...

Teyla: And Ronon appears to be quite angry...

McKay: (Sarcastically) Oh, that evens it out!

Ronon: (About to fight the Wraith Commander) You kill him before I do, I kill you.

Sheppard: What if he kills you first?

Ronon: Then you kill him.

Sheppard: Got it.

(Ronon gets beaten down and is about to be fed upon when the Jumper de-cloaks in front of him surprising everyone)

Beckett: If he doesn't like it he can sue me. (closes his eyes and concentrates)

Ronon: I win!

(Beckett fires a drone into the Wraith, killing it)

Ronon: (to McKay and Beckett) Which one of you killed that Wraith?

(McKay and Beckett smile, unaware that Ronon threatened to kill anyone who killed that particular Wraith before him)

Beckett: That would be me.

McKay: My idea.

(Ronon gets up and approaches the two in a threatening manner, worrying them)

Beckett: What, don't tell me you're not happy that he's dead?!

Sheppard: I had him in my sights but Ronon threatened to kill me if I did.

McKay: (Extremely nervous) It was all Beckett's idea!

(For a second Ronon looks like he's going to pound Beckett for killing the Wraith, he then surprises everyone by simply hugging him.)

Ronon: Thanks, Doc.

Beckett: How bout you sit down and I'll get that tracking device out of ya and deactivated before the hive ship gets a bead on us.

(Ronon sits down)

Beckett: I figure this time you wont mind if I give you a sedative.

(Ronon falls unconscious)

Beckett: Or not.

Goofs

 * During a flashback, Ronon Dex refers to the Stargate as "the gate," even though in "Runner" he claims to have only ever known it as the "ring of the ancestors". Though this can be explained away as a mistake in Ronon's memory, as he has been calling the Stargates gates for over a year.
 * When Dr. Rodney McKay is dialing the gate in the opening sequence, as he activates the gate one of the panels of the Dial Home Device can be seen lifting at the edge closest to the central panel.
 * Morphine doesn't make you loopy it makes you sleepy, thus the reference to Morpheus. It often causes one to pass out and awaken many hours later with no recollection of the events that occured in the interim.
 * The "cage" the Atlantis team is held in has gaps that would pose no difficulty squeezing through for anyone on the team.
 * The Wraith have explained in "Allies" that they are too numerous and woke up too early to sustain themselves with the barren feeding grounds, which haven't had the proper time to replenish their populations, available to them in the Pegasus Galaxy. This is their primary motivation for wanting to get to the Milky Way Galaxy. It seems contradictive that they would kill even a single human, when they can store them in stasis for indefinite periods of time (even if they are currently well fed), while they consider civil war to lower their own population.
 * These Wraith which were so hard to kill in the beginning of the series are dying with one shot now (with inferior weapons, no less). Also, a shotgun blast does not blow a target away. The laws of physics would demand that the shooter would also be blown equally as far back from the recoil of the shot. Bullets are fast moving projectiles but their mass is not greater than the whole of a human or Wraith body, They would pass through the body without incident, though this could be explained away under the assumption that the Wraith appearing to be less intimidating, and thus less efficient and easy to kill, regardless of physics.
 * When Ronon lands after leaping across a hallway while firing, one of his guns falls out of its holster and ends up against the wall.