File № 2026.1111 Classification: Stargate · Wraith

Atlantis Trusted One Wraith. Todd Was Using Them All Along.

Filed: Nov 11, 2026
Read time: 5 min
Franchise: Stargate
Filed by: James Chambers

Summary of findings

Todd was the one Wraith Atlantis could work with, and every deal paid him first: the ZPMs, an alliance of hives, Keller's formula. He did give Sheppard his life back, and he helped land a dying ship. He used Atlantis. He just didn't win much of it.

For three seasons, Todd was the one Wraith that Atlantis could actually work with. Every time he helped them, though, he walked away with something, and most of what he wanted was power over other Wraith. So this file goes through every deal Atlantis made with Todd and checks who came out ahead.

A guy named after someone from college

Quick version if you're new to Atlantis like me. The Wraith feed on human life force, every hive answers to a queen, and the hives fight each other when food runs short. Hold on to that, because almost everything Todd does comes back to it.

Todd never gives a name, so Sheppard picks one: "Let's go with Todd. It's a guy I knew in college. He was very pale." McKay answers, "Todd's a terrible name." Spoils of War, SGA season 4

The debt

It starts in Common Ground. Kolya of the Genii lets a starving Wraith prisoner feed on Sheppard on a live feed to Atlantis. That Wraith is Todd. When their chance comes, Sheppard throws him the keys to his chains, and they run on Sheppard's terms: they need each other until the Stargate, then they go their separate ways.

Todd feeds on Sheppard to get his strength back and takes out the Genii search party. Then he walks back to the man he just drained and gives back every year he took. When Sheppard brings up their deal, Todd says, "I did not truly expect you to honor it." At the gate, Sheppard tells him, "All bets are off." Common Ground, SGA season 3

That's the best card Todd has, and it deserves its full weight. Nobody could have made him give those years back.

Even if the mercy was real, Todd walks away knowing John Sheppard keeps his word and is very hard to kill. That's a useful human to keep alive, and Todd is going to need him again. Our read

Atlantis fought the battle. Todd took the loot.

In season 4, the Replicators start wiping out the human worlds the Wraith feed on, and Todd comes to Atlantis to team up. In fairness to him, the Replicators were only hunting Wraith because the expedition had switched their attack command back on, so part of this mess was Atlantis's own. In Be All My Sins Remember'd, seven hive ships fight next to the Daedalus and the Apollo, and the Replicator homeworld is destroyed. That's a real alliance, and he deserves credit for it.

In the last minutes of that battle, with the planet about to blow, Todd tells his crew, "Not until I get what I came for." His darts come back with ZPMs. "Now we have what we need to complete our mission." Spoils of War, SGA season 4

Those ZPMs were meant for a cloning facility, where a queen's handful of warriors get copied thousands of times over. When Sheppard's team breaks Todd out of a cell right before his execution, he says, "I wasn't sure you'd come," and Sheppard answers, "What are friends for?" I'm choosing to read that as sarcasm.

With Sheppard, McKay and Ronon captured, Lorne wants to go back for them. Todd says, "There is no way to help your friends right now." Later, with the team on its way back under fire, he's still pushing: "We can't wait any longer." SGA season 4

The first time staying with Atlantis cost Todd something, he was ready to leave Atlantis's people behind. To be fair, with a rival hive closing in, the tactical read isn't crazy. Our read

His plan fails anyway. Sheppard crashes Todd's own hive ship into the cloning facility, and the army never happens.

The queen he made

In season 5, Atlantis offers Todd Dr. Keller's gene therapy, which could end a Wraith's need to feed on humans. Todd is in fast, until it turns out he may have, in his words, "exaggerated my position within the alliance." The alliance answers to one queen, the Primary, and Todd's queen is dead. So Teyla, whose Wraith DNA lets her pass as a queen, goes in as one.

Todd kills the Primary and hands the knife to Teyla, and he never told her this was the plan. Afterward he tells her, "I doubt you would have gone through with it had you known," and then, "You are now effectively in control of the alliance." He stalls the therapy, because pushing it "so soon after the change in leadership may invite unwelcome questions." The Queen, SGA season 5

The Daedalus and the formula

In First Contact, Woolsey takes Keller out on the Daedalus to test the therapy with Todd. Todd is open about his doubts: if his people stop feeding, "then what would we do? Who would we be?" When two of his cruisers blow apart jumping to hyperspace, he accuses Atlantis. He's wrong. Someone else had switched on an old Ancient weapon, the Attero device.

Todd came to a medical meeting on an ally's ship with a stun weapon up each sleeve. He doesn't keep the Daedalus, but he admits later that he "acquired some of the formulation while my crew and I were occupying the Daedalus." First Contact, SGA season 5

His best case

The show gives Todd a real one. In Infection, his hive ship shows up over Atlantis, dying. He gave the formula to his whole crew, and it worked until it started killing them. Atlantis isn't spotless here either, since Woolsey wants the data whether it ends up a treatment or a weapon.

Todd: "This disease is your responsibility." Then, "You owe me this, Sheppard." Sheppard: "I don't owe you anything." With the hive falling and Sheppard's team still aboard, Todd fires the thrusters and helps land the wreck. Sheppard's answer to his thanks: "A deal's a deal." Infection, SGA season 5

So that's his best case. He gave Sheppard his life back, he helped land a dying ship with Atlantis's people on it, and in the finale, Enemy at the Gate, he warns Atlantis about a new super-hive. "Who would we be" is not a line anyone writes for a cardboard villain.

Look at what each of those moments got him. Common Ground settled a debt. Landing the wreck saved his own life. The show never turns the finale warning into a scheme, so neither will we. Respecting Sheppard and using Atlantis aren't opposites, and Todd does both. Our read

The ledger

Atlantis freed him, and he squared the debt. Atlantis fought the Replicators, and he left with the ZPMs. Atlantis broke him out of a cell, and he was ready to leave them in one. Atlantis lent him Teyla, and he got the alliance. Atlantis brought him aboard the Daedalus, and he left with the formula.

To be straight with you, he didn't win much of it. His army never got built, the Daedalus stayed Earth's, and the formula killed his crew. For a master schemer, his follow-through is honestly kind of rough. He used Atlantis. He didn't beat them.

The show never rules on it, and I'm not going to either. So was Todd ever really on Atlantis's side, or did he just need them? If you think he was a real ally the whole time, I want to hear which episode convinced you.