Эйден Форд: История персонажа «Звёздные врата: Атлантида»

Fictional character from Stargate Atlantis

First Lieutenant Aiden Ford, USMC is a fictional character in the 2004 Canadian American Sci Fi Channel television series Stargate Atlantis, a military science fiction show about a combined civilian and military team exploring another galaxy via a network of alien transportation devices. Played by Rainbow Sun Francks, Aiden Ford is introduced as a main character in the season one premiere "Rising", holding the military rank of first lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. Ford is a regular in season one. He appears in a recurring role season two and appears once in a dream sequence in the season five premiere episode Search and Rescue. He later reappears in the official continuation novel Stargate Atlantis Legacy: The Third Path in which his ultimate fate is revealed.

Lieutenant Aiden Ford is introduced in the series premiere, "Rising", where he is stationed at the Antarctica outpost. Ford served in the Stargate Command (SGC) before and is twenty five years old at the beginning of the first season. Ford served as John Sheppard's second in command after the events of "Rising" until a Wraith feeds upon Ford during a Wraith attack on Atlantis in season 2's "The Siege, Part 3". An exploding grenade blows them off a building into the ocean, and Ford's unconscious body and the still attached Wraith are recovered over an hour later. Ford survives after having an overdose of Wraith enzyme and later undergoes mental and physical changes. Ford develops a solid black left eye and becomes more aggressive and paranoid, fleeing Atlantis with a stolen Puddle Jumper. The Atlantis team encounters him again in "Runner" where they learn that Ford began killing Wraiths throughout the Pegasus galaxy to harvest their enzyme that gave him abnormal strength. Ford is presumed dead when he deliberately jumps into the culling beam of a Wraith dart, but the Atlantis team encounters him again in the mid season 2 parter "The Lost Boys"/"The Hive". The Wraith enzyme allowed Ford to awake immediately after rematerializing on board a Wraith hive ship, from where he escaped only to build up a small strike force of young men following his suit by informing them about the benefits of the Wraith enzyme. Ford asks the Atlantis team for help in destroying an entire Wraith Hive ship, but the mission fails and forces Sheppard to leave Ford behind on an about to explode hive ship. Ford is only seen again in Sheppard's dream in the season 5 episode "Search and Rescue".

After the end of season 1, the series producers, and the actor himself, felt that Ford had not worked as intended and was highly underused as a result. Producer Joseph Mallozzi said in 2009 that "We can assume [Ford] went down [ ] with the ship" in "The Hive". Rainbow Sun Francks was disappointed about the evolution of his character, saying Ford did not evolve a backstory which the other characters did. After announcing that Ronon Dex would become a main character in the Atlantis series, they followed up with another announcement saying that they had reduced Ford to a recurring character in the series. When asked about reducing Francks' role in Atlantis, Wright replied "The change in status means that Francks will not appear in every episode, and will not be listed in the show's opening credits."

Fans of the character set up campaigns to get Ford back as a main character later in season two or season three. They sent various petitions to the producers, cast and crew of Stargate Atlantis to change their minds. Fans of the character even put up a website under the name F. O. R. D., which in turn was also the name for one of the campaigns fighting for the revival of the character.