and Rescue". Literature Ford reappears in the official novel continuation Stargate Atlantis Legacy: The Third Path. To their surprise, the team finds Ford alive and with a group of nomadic humans known as the Travelers. He explains to Sheppard he managed to escape the hive ship before it was destroyed, but crashed on the planet over which the battle took place. With the help of the Travelers, he recovered from his addiction but it took so long that he could no longer find Atlantis afterwards. Ford began leading a guerilla campaign against the Wraith, aided by the Travelers. He also now has a wife and son and regrets his previous actions under the Wraith enzyme. At the end of the novel, Ford is safely returned to Earth with his wife and son and reunites with his cousin and grandparents. Conceptual history 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. Unwilling to write him out, the writers came up with an idea to make the character more important, but that downgraded him to a recurring character. 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. Although Francks called the situation "tough", he reacted positively towards the development of character during the second season. 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. Many fans were disappointed with this new development because many felt he didn't have time to "prove" himself in the new series and that the character was never fully developed compared to the other characters in the show. Many campaigns to save the character were created after the announcement, the most notable being the F.O.R.D. campaign. Francks said that the change was not a "blow", since he and Brad Wright had already discussed the change. He was also more positive in the change of story arc for the character, saying he was a "big part" of the second season compared to season one where they hadn't had enough episodes to broaden