- "David isn't one of us."
- — Marcy Warton (Traveler 3569)
David Mailer is is a social worker who looks after more people than he officially has to. One is Marcy Warton, and many of the others are homeless. He truly cares for them, which means that he often buys them things out of his own pocket. David frequently comes across Traveler-related incidents due to his connection with Marcy though he's always kept in the dark about the true nature of these events as per Protocol 2.
Biography[]
Version One[]
David had been looking after Marcy for about a year prior to her being overwritten by Traveler 3569.
He first met Traveler 3569 after seeing Marcy for an arranged meeting. He worries because he sees the cut on her head from her fall, so he takes her to the doctor. David and Marcy take the bus. He wants her to read. While pulling out a children's book, Marcy begins to read the newspaper, which surprises David. He believes that it's a medical miracle that Marcy no longer has intellectual disabilities though the doctor believes that it was more likely she faked the disability, and the head injury made her forget who she was pretending to be. He allows Marcy to stay with him after she has a seizure. (S1E01: Travelers)
David wants to take Marcy to the hospital but she refuses, knowing what's happening to her. He gives her a phone and calls her when he sees the plane crash that she'd predicted, but writes it off as FBI business. (S1E02: Protocol 6)
Against Marcy's advice, David goes out of his way in order to help the people he works for. He ends up serving food at one of the local homeless shelters. One time he copied off a winning lottery number from Marcy, and spent the money on things for his wards. (S2E05: Jenny, S2E06: U235)
Sometime later, David along with the loved ones of Marcy's associates are kidnapped and forced to undergo psychology sessions. Dr. Katrina Perrow tries to impress on David that he was abducted because Marcy is a time traveler from the future, but David merely believes the doctor must be high on drugs, firmly trusting Marcy's cover story as an FBI doctor working for Grant MacLaren. Some henchmen later beat him up to impress upon the Travelers the severity of the situation, and coerce David to implore Marcy via video to give in to their demands.
The Travelers comply, and they each record a confession video regarding their true nature. David views Marcy's confession, and comes to believe the accusations are true in light of his shared ordeal with four other strangers. When David and the others are released as a result of the demands being complied, Marcy rushes over to him, but he pushes her away, thinking they will not be able to get over this. All the abductees are sedated and brought to an FBI safehouse, where they are also administered memory inhibitors to make them forget most of what happened. They'll remember the kidnapping, but not specifics. (S2E12: 001, S3E01: Ilsa)
After surviving the kidnapping perpetrated by 001, David begins working out more and training to be more useful in the future and better prepared to deal with similar situations like Marcy's. He purchases a gun, and Marcy agrees to teach him how to use it. Later, she also teaches him the basics of fighting and "how to flip people." (S3E02: Yates)
David lets Jeff Conniker (5416) and an injured Archivist A-18 into his house to use Marcy's medical kit. After patching up A-18's wound they tell David to grab his gun and assist them in securing the Archive. En route, A18 activates Protocol Epsilon and upon arriving, she and David go into the Archive while 5416 awaits either backup or The Faction. Inside, David and A18 begin loading blood bags laced with nanite-encoded DNA into bags to transport to a new Archive. Gunfire begins to go off outside and soon after A18 is shot in the head, fatally killed. David is then gunned down and suffers many wounds to his chest and abdomen. In a stroke of luck, the number of nanites in the blood bags he was carrying at the time was enough that his bullet wounds were instantly healed. The Faction left the area after planting a nuclear bomb in the Archive and locking the bomb, an unconscious David, and a dead Archivist 18 in the Archive. (S3E08: Archive)
Upon regaining consciousness, he finds himself locked in the Archive and gets contacted by Marcy via a comm she had secretly injected him with. MacLaren's team arrives on site, and Marcy gets David to patch the team members into his comm. With the Rothski device set to go off in minutes, Trevor and Philip coach David in disarming it. He removes the casing with a knife found on A18's body and cuts the wires. Unfortunately, David does not short circuit the wiring in time, and the bomb activates. Trevor yells for David to pick up the core of the bomb and throw it onto the floor, which he does and leaves him with severe burns on his hands. Unbeknownst to David, he just received an extremely lethal dose of radiation.
Knowing that only a lot of nanites from a doctor Traveler team (D team) can save him, Marcy takes him back to Ops. However, a D team never arrives and David continues to deteriorate, drifting in and out of sleep. His subconsciousness puts him back in his flat where the team thank him for what he's done for everyone and explain who they are to him. In the base, Marcy says that she loves him just before the Director turns him into a messenger declaring Protocol Omega, which ultimately kills him. (S3E09: David)
In multiple projections witnessed by Philip Pearson after the declaration of Protocol Omega, David is still alive and well. In one timeline he's cracking jokes at the Travelers' Ops, in others living happily with Marcy, and in one he giddily celebrates with her when they learn she's pregnant. (S3E10: Protocol Omega)
Version Two[]
Traveler 3468 went back in time to before Traveler 001 arrived and sent a message to the Director that the Traveler program would ultimately fail. This caused the Director to never send the first Traveler, which reboots the timeline from that point forward.
In the new timeline, David is alive. Marcy doesn't suffer from brain damage due to no experimentation done to her. The two meet each other at the back of a bus going to a "rough part of town", and David warns her about it accordingly. The two hit off to an awkward but good start. (S3E10: Protocol Omega)
Trivia[]
- Numerous actors in Travelers also had roles in the Stargate franchise, both of which had Brad Wright as an executive producer. Patrick Gilmore primarily portrayed Dale Volker in Stargate Universe and several minor characters in the other shows.
- David had the last line of the series. It was 'My name's David' which he said to Version Two Marcy when they met on the bus.
- David is one of only three recurring characters to appear in all the seasons but not be overwritten. The other two are Kathryn MacLaren and Ray Green.