The World of Stargate

The Ancients. The Ancestors. The Atlanteans. The Alterans.

It took several years for the Stargate franchise to flesh out the mysterious gatebuilders, adding a new veneer of fact and mythology with each season of Stargate-SG1 and Stargate: Atlantis. Their story has now finally been (mostly) fully told in the direct-to-DvD movie "Stargate: The Ark of Truth".

We first hear about the Ancients in an episode ("The Fifth Race") where Colonel O'Neill accidentally downloads their database on a distant world. With the help of the Asgard he recovers from the experience and brings back to Earth the knowledge that the stargate system was indeed built by a pre-Goa'uld civilization (confirming Dr. Daniel Jackson's belief that the stargates were older than the Goa'uld). The Asgard tell O'Neal that the Ancients had once participated in an alliance of four races: the Ancients, the Nox, the Asgard, and the Firlings (Furlings?). SG-1 has already met the Nox by this time, but we never meet the Firlings.

In "The Fifth Race", the Asgard tell O'Neill that the Ancients vanished from "this region of space" a long time ago. We learned several seasons later that the Ancients' civilization was devastated by a terrible plague and that the survivors of the race fled to the Pegasus galaxy. But let's start from the beginning.

Apparently, the Ancients were descended from a very advanced race of humans who dwelt in a galaxy far from the Milky Way more than 4,000,000 years ago. These humans became divided into two groups: the Alterans (Ancients), who believed in individual choice, and the Ori, who appear to have been despotic and tyrannical. After a period of warfare between the two groups, the surviving Alterans (Ancients) created a weapon -- the Ark of Truth -- which could be used to convince the Ori to abandon their path of conquest and domination. However, the Alteran leaders were unwilling to force the Ori to rethink their philosophies, fearing such forced persuasion would destroy the Ori's sense of self.

The Alterans (Ancients) instead fled their home galaxy in a city-sized spaceship. After some unspecified length of time they arrived in the Milky Way galaxy and settled first on the world eventually called Dukara. Dukara would later be the world where teh Goa'uld enslaved human warrior clans and transformed them into the Jaffa. The most significant artifact the Alterans (Ancients) left behind on Dukara was an immense weapon capable of wiping out all life across the stargate system.

From their base on Dukara the Alterans (Ancients) settled many planets throughout the galaxy, connecting them with stargates. At some point the Alterans (Ancients) entered into peaceful relations with the Asgard, the Nox, and the Firlings. Their alliance lasted a long time, but eventually the Alteran civilization succumbed to a great plague that devastated their worlds. The last surviving group of Alterans (Ancients) fled from the Earth in a flying city (not necessarily the same one their ancestors arrived in) that took them to the Pegasus Galaxy far, far away. At least one, perhaps more than one, Alteran remained behind, perhaps due to infection.

In the Pegasus Galaxy the Alterans (Ancients) seeded more than 1,000 worlds with new life. Their civilization flourished and spread through the stars of the small galaxy. But on a distant planet they encountered a new life form, an Aratis bug, from which evolved a human-insect crossbreed species called the Wraith. The Wraith fed on the Alterans (Ancients) and launched a war to enslave all humans, turning them into a semi-domesticated food source.

With superior technology the Alterans (Ancients) were able to defeat the Wraith at first, but eventually the Wraith implemented a breeding program that expanded their numbers beyond the capacity of the Alterans (Ancients) to defend themselves. As more worlds fell to the Wraith more Wraith were bred.

It seems that during this period the Alterans (Ancients) began preparing themselves for their own next step in evolution: ascension. In their star-roving city, Atlantis, they trapped and studied an energy entity that was at least partially ascended. The Alterans (Ancients) created at least one sanctuary where they could meditate and learn to ascend, shedding their physical forms and becoming more powerful than living creatures.

However, as the Wraith became more powerful the Alteran civilization collapsed. Many Alteran communities were isolated and left to decline into primitive barbarism under Wraith persecution. The Alterans (Ancients) resorted to extreme technological strategies, including building an army of human-form replicators, that were simply overwhelmed by Wraith initiatives. When the Alterans' defenses for all but one world had collapsed, the survivors of Atlantis sank their city beneath a sea to prevent the Wraith from seizing its secrets and they returned to Earth through their stargate.

By this time there were relatively few Alterans (Ancients) left. They once again contracted the plague that had driven them from the Milky Way millions of years previously, or else a new plague evolved to afflict them. It is entirely possible that the plague was sent by the Ori, who appear to have developed stargate technology and to have studied ascension at about the same pace as the Alterans. Many of the dying Alterans succeeded in ascending and establishing a new civilization on a higher plane.

A very small number of Alterans remained on Earth, perhaps as ascended beings who had taken human-form avatars. At least one returned to the Pegasus Galaxy to defend her home world, and in doing so violated a covenant of non-interference for which she was permanently exiled to her world.

After the Ori ascended they founded a new religion among the humans of their galaxy, calling it Origen (meaning "truth"). The Ori forced the humans to worship them as gods, thus gaining strength. The ascended Alterans refused to pose as gods and thus did not enhance their strength. However at least one, Oma Desai, undertook a program of assisting living humans (who had evolved on Earth) to ascend and join the ranks of the ascended Alterans.

Another Alteran took human form again about 1500 years ago to become known as Myrddin or Merlin. He did so in order to create a weapon capable of destroying ascended beings. Myrddin's intention was apparently detected by the Alterans, who sent Morgan Le Fay to stop him. But realizing that Myrddin was right to prepare a means to defeat the Ori once and for all, Morgan hid Myrddin and his resarch against future need.

About 1,000 years ago Oma Desai accidentally assisted the Goa'uld Anubis to ascend. When the Alterans realized what he was they punished Oma by stripping Anubis of part of his ascended nature, restricting him to accomplishing only what he could do if he were a living creature, and forcing Oma to watch.

As human civilization on Earth rediscovered the stargates and moved out into the galaxy, the Stargate Command encountered the Goa'uld and developed a series of alliances with rebel Jaffa, the Asgard, and other human populations (as well as the Tok'Ra, rebel Goa'uld) to oppose the Goa'uld. Once the Goa'uld System Lords had become weak enough, Anubis launched a surprise attack on the System Lords, taking control over much of the galaxy.

Anubis was finally defeated by Oma Desai, who sacrificed herself in order to prevent him from seizing the weapon on Dukara that would have enabled him to wipe out all life in the galaxy and seed it with new life according to his own design.

Soon afterward, Stargate Command found a way to reach the Pegasus galaxy and take possession of the city of Atlantis. In doing so the Stargate expedition reawakened the hibernating Wraith.

Not long after the Atlantis expedition found itself embroiled in a war with the Wraith, Earth accidentally made contact with the servants of the Ori. Learning that the Alterans had by now ascended and become powerful, the Ori launched a holy war against the Milky Way galaxy to acquire enough followers there so that they could challenge and destroy the Alterans once and for all. The Way of Origen had painted the Alterans as the source of all evil.

Stargate Command eventually learned about Myrddin's weapon and sent SG-1 on numerous missions to find it. The Ori, in the meantime, seeded a Stargate ally, Vala Mal Doran, with a child that grew quickly to become the Orici, a human-Ori hybrid. Vala named her child Adria, and Adria became the leadre of the Ori expeditionary forces.

When Adria learned of Myrddin's weapon she attempted to seize it before SG-1 could find it. However, SG-1's Dr. Daniel Jackson found Myrddin and received Myrddin's knowledge and power as Myrddin died. Daniel constructed the weapon under Adria's watch (allowing her to think she would use it against the Ancients). When the weapon was ready, Daniel sent it to the Ori galaxy, finally destroying the Ori.

However, the Ori's followers remained powerful and Adria, learning that the Ori were defeated, forced herself to ascend so that she could return to the Ori galaxy. There she took up the mantle of the Ori and received all the energy that had formerly been distributed among all the Ori.

When SG-1 finally learned that the Ark of Truth had been left behind on the Alterans' homeworld, Stargate Command sent a starship to the Ori galaxy to find the Ark and use it to free the enslaved humans. Morgan Le Fay helped the mission achieve success and after the Ark revealed the truth to Adria's followers she became weak enough for Morgan to directly challenge. Morgan sacrificed herself to destroy Adria.

No more has been revealed of the Ancients (Alterans) as yet, although they did leave behind some interesting artifacts, including more than one device capable of disrupting time. At least one flying time travel craft has been recovered by the Stargate Command.

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