Traveler

"We're Travelers. We land on planets when we need to for supplies, trade. The rest of the time we keep moving."

- Larrin

The Travelers are a technologically advanced race of Humans in the Pegasus galaxy who have escaped being culled by the Wraith by hiding aboard generational ships which travel throughout the Pegasus galaxy.

Overview
The Travelers are a spacefaring race of humans who decided to escape the Wraith by launching themselves into space, thereby making it impossible for them to be pinned down in one place. Over the ten-thousand years following the defeat of the Lanteans, they remained aboard their ships, landing as needed for supplies but otherwise keeping on the move. However, without a home base and with virtually no other advanced civilizations in the galaxy, they have been forced to improvise to maintain their fleet. As such, they cannot build new ships, and those that remain are often repaired using mismatched components and haphazard reconstruction.

Culture
The Travelers are led by a Governing Council which makes all major decisions pertaining to the race as a whole such as alliances and decisions of war. Individual ship captains, however, make most decisions that apply to their ships individually, such as whether or not to enter a battle. Traveler "law" does not prohibit torture on supposed friendly races.

Technology
Traveler technology is relatively advanced compared to that of most other Pegasus civilizations. They have hyperspace-capable starships, hand-held and ship-mounted energy weapons, and shielding technology. Curiously, Traveler technology is different from most FTL-capable races as it is not based on Control crystals, but on more primitive wires and chips. They are currently the only known civilization that has mastered interstellar travel before mastering crystal or other forms of more "exotic" technologies.

Due to their lack of supplies, Traveler ships are very old and held together with a large amount of "jury rigging"; most of their scientific resources and efforts are spent maintaining their old and relatively large fleet. Loose wires can been seen hanging in most corridors, and Dr. Radek Zelenka has described their hyperdrives as having been assembled from mismatched components (no doubt due the scarcity of necessary replacement parts). They possess a limited understanding of Lantean technology, enough to operate Lantean ships and conduct basic repairs, but lack the Ancient Technology Activation gene.

Travelers wear armbands which serve as a communication device and a radiation sensor. They also have hand-held computers which can be interfaced with other technologies. They make use of spy-satellites with subspace communication abilities to monitor activity in other solar systems.

History
Although once able to build new ships as needed, long term space travel has deprived them of the resources necessary to construct new vessels. Overpopulation and heavy amounts of "jury rigging" are prevalent. A solution to this problem came when the Travelers discovered an abandoned Lantean Aurora-class battleship. Unable to fly it themselves, they mounted a trap to capture Colonel John Sheppard and Captain Typhuss James Kira, who they knew possessed the Ancient Technology Activation gene necessary to make the technology work. Though Sheppard and Kira weren't cooperative, they eventually engineered an interface using blood samples from him. Sheppard convinced Larrin to let them go, and told her that a spacefaring race such as theirs could one day turn the tide in the battle against the Xindi.

When the Asurans began to annihilate human worlds to deprive the Wraith of their food source, Sheppard approached Larrin to enlist her aid in battling their fleet. She presented their plan to the Traveler Governing Council, and several ships were committed to the battle, including their Lantean battleship. The Atlantis Expedition made further repairs to the vessel prior to the battle, making it combat-worthy. Though the attack on the Asurans succeeded, one of their generational ships was lost in the battle.