Daniel Jackson

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Stargate character
Dr. Daniel Jackson portrayed by James Spader (left) in Stargate and Michael Shanks (right) in Stargate SG-1
Daniel Jackson
Race	Human
Gender	Male
Rank	None
Birthplace	U.S., Earth (New York City)
Known relatives	Melbourne and Claire Jackson (parents, deceased) Nick Ballard (grandfather) Sha'uri (wife, deceased) Shifu (step-son)
Film portrayer	James Spader
Television portrayer	Michael Shanks
Key episodes	"Stargate" (first appearance)

Daniel Jackson (b. July 8, 1965^[1][2]) is a fictional character in both the science fiction feature film Stargate and the subsequent television series Stargate SG-1. The role was played by James Spader in the film version and is played by Michael Shanks in the TV series. Shanks also played the character in the first episode of Stargate Atlantis. He has a PhD in Archaeology, Anthropology and Philology.

Dr. Daniel Jackson is an only child and an orphan. His maternal grandfather and only living relative, Nick Ballard, is currently living on another planet with giant aliens ("Crystal Skull"). Daniel's parents, Melbourne and Claire Jackson, also archaeologists, were crushed while overseeing a piece of Egyptian art being placed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York ("The Gamekeeper"). This caused Daniel much grief during his life.

Daniel is an archaeologist and linguist who speaks more than twenty-three languages ("1969"); the ones seen on screen are his native English, Ancient Egyptian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese and German, as well as Goa'uld, Ancient, and Unas (which he decoded). In the film Stargate, he uses his knowledge of ancient Egypt to open a device called the Stargate by interpreting the cover-stones found with it. On the original mission through the Stargate to the planet Abydos, Daniel meets and falls in love with a native woman, Sha'uri (she is named Sha're in the TV series Stargate SG-1).

They accidentally marry as a result of miscommunication, but after winning the battle to free the Abydonians from the System Lord Ra, Daniel decides not to return to Earth with the rest of the team. He has finally found a family and wants to live the rest of his life learning about the culture and history of Abydos with its insights into ancient Egypt.

Contents 1 Stargate SG-1 2 Non- and semi-permanent deaths 3 Daniel's love life 4 References

[edit] Stargate SG-1

Daniel's life changes course once again for the Stargate series, "Stargate SG-1" when his wife is abducted. Daniel joins a team, designated SG-1, with the personal goal of recovering her, but circumstances eventually change. His wife dies, but Daniel stays aboard the team with a brief interruption caused by his ascension.

During his many adventures with SG-1, Daniel has been captured, infected with alien viruses, had 12 alien consciousness implanted within his brain, died and brought back to life multiple times, used the highly addictive sarcophagus many times and experienced its withdrawal symptoms, and has ascended to a higher plane of existence twice. He also succumbed to appendicitis as well as being kidnapped once. (The actor, Michael Shanks, suffered appendicitis around the time "Nemesis" was being filmed and was in no condition for any serious work, so the writers had to quickly reduce Jackson's role in the episode, and used Shanks' real-life condition.)

His contributions have also been recognized by the Asgard: the Daniel Jackson, the flagship of Thor, the Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet, was named in his honor.

It is implied in "Chimera" that Daniel attended the University of Chicago for graduate school.

Specific season spoilers follow:

A year after the initial mission to Abydos, Sha're is kidnapped by Apophis and she is made host to the Goa'uld symbiote Amonet, Apophis' wife. Daniel returns to Earth and joins SG-1 in the hope that his missions through the Stargate will help him find his beloved wife.

During these missions, Daniel serves the role of an interpreter when speaking to alien people. He learns languages quickly and has a wealth of knowledge on ancient cultures. Among a team of military officers, Daniel is often the voice of understanding and acceptance of different cultures. He is an optimist and believes in helping people even if it endangers his own life.

He also played a vital role in thwarting a Goa'uld invasion of Earth. During a mission ("There But For the Grace of God"), Daniel was transported to an alternate reality where he was never part of the SGC, Teal'c had never defected, and Earth was being attacked by a Goa'uld fleet. During his time, Daniel was able to work out the Stargate address that the invasion had originated from, and convinced the Jack O'Neill of that reality to let him return to his world to provide advance warning of the invasion.

Sha're/Amonet gives birth to the Harcesis child Shifu in the episode "Secrets". Daniel Jackson considers himself somewhat a stepfather to the boy.

He was also briefly transferred into the body of a dying old man called Ma'chello, a long-time opponent of the Goa'uld. Initially, Ma'chello was prepared to regard Daniel as a casuality of war, as he knew of no way to reverse the process, but Samantha Carter eventually restored them to their rightful bodies by causing Teal'c and Jack to switch bodies and subsequently 'shuffling' the minds until they returned to their rightful bodies. ("Holiday")

Sha're dies in the episode "Forever in a Day", when Teal'c is forced to kill her to stop Amonet from killing Daniel.

During a mission to a planet where the population had mass amnesia ("Past and Present"), Daniel developed feelings for a woman called Ke'ra, before they learned that she was originally Linea, the 'Destroyer of Worlds'. The SGC were forced to prevent her taking the drug that would restore her memories, and Ke'ra returned to her adopted people, changed from what she had once been.

Daniel journeys to a planet called Kheb to search for the Harcesis. He discovers the child is being cared for by Oma Desala, a being of great power and wisdom, and accepts her custody in the episode "Maternal Instinct".

In the episode "Crystal Skull", Daniel was reunited with his grandfather when exposure to a crystal skull on an alien world turned him invisible and intangible. His grandfather was called in due to his experience with a similar artifact, and was able to bring Daniel back into sync with reality, before deciding to remain on the planet.

During a mission to the planet that is believed to have been the original homeworld of the Goa'uld in the episode "The First Ones", Daniel was captured by a young Unas (Who he came to know as Chaka) as part of a ritual that would allow the Unas to pass into adulthood. However, the two of them developed a certain friendship, and Daniel was eventually released.

In the episode "The Curse", the death of Daniel's old professor and mentor led to an awkward reunion with his ex-girlfriend, Sarah Gardner. This also led to the discovery that his professor had acquired a Goa'uld artifact containing the dormant Goa'uld Osiris, who went on to possess Sarah despite the best efforts of Sam and Daniel.

Shifu returns, much older, to teach Daniel the dangers of having the full knowledge of the Goa'uld in the episode "Absolute Power", by showing him a vision of what he would become if he used the Goa'uld knowledge. In this vision, Daniel, overcome by the evil nature of the Goa'uld knowledge, had Sam locked away for questioning his authority, destroyed Moscow for questioning him, and was apparently responsible for Teal'c's death (He may also have killed Jack when Jack tried to stop him going too far, but the vision ended at this point).

Being able to fluently speak Goa'uld, Daniel is assigned to infiltrate the System Lord summit as Yu's Lo'tar Jariol and release the symbiont poison on them. However, he is secretly confronted by Osiris. He stabs her with a Re'ol memory altering device so she'd forget about him. As he is about to release the poison, he hears that Anubis wants to rejoin the System Lords. He then plans to capture Osiris and leave, but his plan is interrupted by Yu, who found out from Ba'al's Lo'tar that Daniel, aka Jariol, is not to be trusted. Daniel escapes without Osiris and without releasing the poison.

In the episode "Meridian", Daniel Jackson dies due to radiation over-exposure he suffered while disabling an unstable naqahdriah reactor; any attempts to cure him with Goa'uld healing devices initially failed, and any later attempts would have left Daniel in a crippled body. However, Jackson does not perish completely; instead, he Ascends to a higher plane of existence, guided by the Ancient Oma Desala.

While Ascended, Jackson's role on SG-1 is filled by Jonas Quinn, a native of the planet that Daniel gave his life to help, although the rest of the team (Particularly Carter) find it hard to get over Daniel's absence, and Jack never really accepts Quinn's presence on his team.

As an Ascended being, Daniel visits SG-1 on occasion, but with minimal interference due to the rules of the Ascended. In the episode "Abyss", he offers Col. Jack O'Neill ascension in an effort to escape Ba'al's torture, but O'Neill declines. Subsequently, it is implied that Daniel planted a subconscious suggestion in Teal'c's mind while meditating to contact Yu and ask for his help in mounting an attack on the fortress.

In "The Changeling", Daniel helps a delusional and critically injured Teal'c to regain his grasp on reality after he was fatally injured, forced to share a symbiote with Bra'tac due to the lack of another, by playing the role of a psychologist in the delusion.

In the season 6 finale "Full Circle", Daniel seeks to defeat the plans of Anubis by having SG-1 locate a device called "The Eye of Ra" located on Abydos. Ultimately, the plan fails. Daniel attempts to make a deal with Anubis in an effort to safeguard the lives of the Abydonians and SG-1, but Anubis breaks his word. Daniel tries to destroy Anubis, only to be whisked away before he could do anything to him, and Abydos is destroyed, although Oma helps Daniel.

Eventually, Daniel is discovered on the planet Vis Uban, having returned to human form, in the Season 7 episode "Fallen", having violated the rules and used his powers to interfere when he tried to save Abydos from Anubis. He initially has total amnesia, but he recoveries his memories of his corporal life fairly rapidly.

Daniel no longer remembered his time as an ascended being, but some memories are buried in his subconscious. This fact proves helpful in "Orpheus", when Daniel taps into his suppressed memories of his time ascended to learn of the capture of Bra'tac and Rya'c by a Goa'uld mining colony, subsequently providing SGC with a means to access the planet and save Teal'c's son and mentor.

When mining operations on a planet were disrupted by the presence of a group of Unas ("Enemy Mine"), Daniel made contact with Chaka once more to help negotiate with the local Unas, who regarded the mine as a sacred place after so many Unas died there while mining for the Goa'uld. With Chaka's help, Daniel was able to negotiate an alliance between the SGC and the Unas, with the Unas agreeing to mine the planet's naquadah and give it to the SGC.

Daniel spent much of Season 7 trying to find the Lost City of the Ancients, which gave him the chance to rescue Sarah when Osiris tried to trick him into revealing the location of the city("Chimera"). More important in the large scale, this leads to the discovery of the Ancient Outpost at Antarctica in the Season 7 finale "Lost City", subsequently prompting the Atlantis expedition.

During Season 8's "Prometheus Unbound", Daniel has his first contact with Vala Mal Doran when the latter seized the Prometheus and Daniel was left on board.

Jackson dies again in the episode "Reckoning (Part 2)", killed by RepliCarter after she tried to acquire the knowledge left in his mind following his Ascension. In the process, however, Daniel was also able to use the link to shut down the Replicators long enough for them to be destroyed.

In the next episode, "Threads", it is shown that Oma Desala is once again providing a path for Daniel to Ascend. But events in the real world prevent him from continuing his journey, and during his decision-making, Anubis appears. Daniel eventually persuades Oma Desala into fighting Anubis (The two of them being equally matched, Anubis can never escape so long as Oma continues to fight), and Daniel is Descended back to Earth to live on as a human, this time with full memory of what just happened to him on the ascended plain of existence.

In the season finale, "Moebius", SG-1 went back in time to retrieve a ZPM, but their cloaked Puddle Jumper was discovered. They began the original Earth rebellion, but Carter, Teal'c and O'Neill were killed by Ra in revenge, although Daniel somehow survived. He sent a message to the future to locate the Stargate and the Puddle Jumper so their alternate selves would fix things. Alt-Daniel had figured things out and SG-1 went to Chulak to get Teal'c, but Alt-Teal'c was forced to shoot Alt-Daniel because he had been infected by a Goa'uld spy. When Alt SG-1 came to 3000 B.C., they and Daniel devised a plan to free Ancient Egypt and make sure the Stargate stayed. After the plan succeeded, Alt-SG-1 and Daniel lived out the rest of their lives, and a variation of the original timeline was restored (The only difference being that O'Neill's pond now has fish in it).

Vala later returns in "Avalon", preventing Daniel from going on the Daedalus to Atlantis by virtually shackling him to her with linking bracelets. She is searching for a lost Ancient treasure and wants Daniel to assist her. After finding the Ancient chamber under Glastonbury Tor, England, Daniel discovers, by reading an Ancient book, that the Ancients called themselves the Alterans and came from another galaxy. He also discovers that the Ancients had a device for intergalactic communication. Still linked to Vala, they use the device to communicate, where they find themselves in the bodies of two people in another galaxy. There, they make contact with the Ori and unintentionally bring that threat to the Milky Way.

During the subsequent search for technology to battle the Priors, Daniel confronts Khalek, a being genetically engineered by Anubis to Ascend and destroy the Ancients. The Pentagon insists on keeping Khalek alive, believing that studying Khalek will give them a means to stop the Priors of the Ori. In the end, however, Khalek is shot by Daniel and Mitchell at the last minute, although valuable information was acquired from him ("Prototype")

With the coming of the Ori battlecruisers to the Milky Way galaxy, Daniel has attracted the interest of Vala's daughter Adria, the 'Child of the Ori'. She has hinted that the Ori have plans for him, although the full extent of these is as yet unrevealed. However, these 'plans' may tie into her belief that his Ascension means that only Daniel can use the anti-Ori weapon designed by Merlin, an Ascended Ancient who retook human form, as well as the fact that, to date, Daniel has been the most vocal opponent of the Ori.

In the season 10 episode "The Shroud", Daniel will apparently be turned into a Prior of the Ori who uses a "soft sell" method of Origin and does not threaten to wipe out the people for not believing in the Ori as gods. This is most likely what Adria was referring to when she discussed the Ori's plans for Daniel, but how and why he was persuaded to become a Prior is unknown as of yet.

[edit] Non- and semi-permanent deaths

The show occasionally jokes about how many times Daniel has died, since he has either died, nearly died, or been presumed dead more often than any other character over the years. (At the 2006 Chicago Stargate convention, Michael Shanks joked that Daniel is "the SG-1 whipping boy".)

The Film

• Killed by a staff blast defending O'Neill in the Stargate motion picture. Resurrected by Ra with a sarcophagus.

Season One

• Presumed dead with the rest of the people of Abydos from the nuke left behind by O'Neill in the Stargate motion picture (In "Children of the Gods").
• Presumed dead by the brainwashed rest of SG-1 in "Fire and Water".
• Killed by Apophis and resurrected by the Nox in "The Nox".
• Supposes his other self to be dead in an alternate universe in "There But For the Grace of God" although in fairness, everyone dies in this episode except Daniel.

Season Two

• Hit by a staff blast and apparently mortally wounded, remains behind on Apophis' doomed ship to use the sarcophagus and escaped via Stargate before the ship was destroyed in "The Serpent's Lair". Presumed dead by the rest of SG-1.
• Briefly died of old age while in the body of Ma'chello, an ancient enemy of the Goa'uld, in "Holiday"; was resusitated long enough to be sent back to his original body.

Season Three

• In the opening of "Rules of Engagement" he appeared to die along with the rest of SG-1, but was only temporarily stunned.
• Carter shot an alien resembling Daniel Jackson, which died later on, in "Foothold".
• In "Crystal Skull", SG-1 searched for Jackson and suspected that he had died, when he was only "out of phase" due to an encounter with an alien device and couldn't be seen, heard, or felt by them.

Season Four

• Suffered cardiac arrest after becoming addicted to a Goa'uld narcotic device. "The Light"
• Was shot and killed with gate-defense lasers along with the rest of SG-1 in the alternate future of "2010".
• Had 'his' head shot off by a staff weapon in "Double Jeopardy", revealing that the SG-1 the episode had followed to that point was not the original, but rather the android SG-1.

Season Five

• Died of radiation poisoning sustained while disarming a naqahdriah bomb, after psychically asking O'Neill to make the doctors and Jacob Carter stop trying to save him in "Meridian", thus Ascending to a higher plane until Season Seven.

Season Six

• Pulled away by the other Ascended as he attempts to use his powers to prevent Anubis from destroying Abydos in "Full Circle"; his teammates assume that he is dead since he would have done everything possible to save Abydos, but he has in reality been returned to human form and banished to another planet

Season Eight

• Killed by Teal'c in a virtual reality system from P7J-989 during "Avatar", as he had previously been a Goa'uld spy inside the virtual reality. If he did not gain the trust of Teal'c inside the game, they would both eventually die.
• Killed by RepliCarter at the very end of "Reckoning" and is seen at a midway point between Ascension and mortality before finally being brought back to life in "Threads".
• A Goa'uld-possessed alternate timeline version of Daniel is shot by Teal'c in "Moebius". The timeline is restored by the end of the episode and Daniel is alive with all of SG-1. (In another timeline in the same episode, all of SG-1 are killed except Daniel when attempting a revolution in the past; that timeline's Daniel apparently lives out his life in ancient Egypt, along with the alternate SG-1 whose Daniel was infected by a Goa'uld, and would have eventually died as well.)

Season Ten

• In the opening episode it is revealed that the Korolev (the ship that Daniel was on) was the Daedalus-class ship that had been destroyed in the season 9 finale. As Daniel hadn't been able to evacuate via Asgard beaming technology or by F-302, he had been presumed dead. SG-1 later discovers that he used the ring platform to escape.

[edit] Daniel's love life

Although not as recognized for his relationships as he is for his deaths, Daniel has attracted a significant amount of female interest during his travels through the Stargate, ranging from actual romance to simply a close, intense relationship that could have become more if given time.

• Sha're: Married her due to a misunderstanding on the first mission to Abydos; remained with her for a year on Abydos before she was taken as a host for Amonet ("Children of the Gods"). Despite the fact that there was no guarantee that Sha're could ever be restored to what she was, baring some occasions when outside forces affected Daniel's mind, he remained faithful to her until her death, when Teal'c was forced to kill Amonet to stop her from killing Daniel ("Forever in a Day").
• After contracting an alien virus, Daniel regressed to a primitive mentality and claimed a young woman SG-1 had rescued earlier, although it is unknown how far he went before he was cured ("The Broca Divide")
• Hathor: A Goa'uld queen, Hathor used her pheromones to take control of every male in the SGC. She was particularly fond of Daniel, referring to him as her 'Beloved'. Using her pheromones, she raped him to acquire his DNA to create a new generation of Goa'uld, but she was driven away by the women of the SGC and the offspring were destroyed ("Hathor")
• Shyla: A princess on a planet SG-1 visited, Daniel saved her life upon their arrival and she became attracted to him. He went along with the relationship to free the rest of SG-1 from death in the naquadah mines, but a price of this was addiction to the sarcophagus that Shyla used to try and keep him with her. Under its influence, he agreed to marry her and leave the SGC, but he eventually recovered from his addiction and called the whole thing off ("Need")
• Ke'ra: Initially, Ke'ra appeared to simply be the leader of a planet who, about a year ago, had contracted mass amnesia under unknown circumstances. She and Daniel developed a close relationship, but this ended when SGC discovered that Ke'ra was originally Linnea, the 'Destroyer of Worlds', who had tricked SG-1 to acquire stargate addresses. Although Daniel felt that she deserved a second chance, as her loss of memory had made her a genuinely good person, he acknowledged the dangers of her regaining her memory. After Ke'ra took some of the cure they had developed, she contemplated suicide to stop the evil part of her, but Daniel convinced her to lose her memories once more ("Past and Present")
• Sarah Gardner: Daniel's old girlfriend in college, the two broke up when Daniel was too busy working to remember their two-month anniversary. They met again in "The Curse", at the funeral of Daniel's old mentor Professor Jordan, when Sarah was taken as a host by the long-dormant Goa'uld Osiris. Eventually, Osiris was captured when she attempted to trick Daniel into revealing the location of Atlantis, and Sarah was freed from Osiris' control ("Chimera"). What happened to her afterwards is unknown; the most likely theory is that, unable to cope with the reminder of her time under Osiris' control that Daniel and the SGC represented, Sarah returned to her original life
• Reese: While not exactly romantic- if nothing else, it is doubtful she was capable of understanding the emotion herself- Daniel developed an intense bond with Reese, the android who had created the Replicators. Despite his best efforts, however, he was unable to convince her to turn her creations off, and Jack was eventually forced to shoot Reese, despite Daniel's anger at Jack's apparent lack of faith in him ("Menace")
• Leda: Having unintentionally triggered a war on a distant planet by using the Stargate, Daniel was trapped on the planet for some months, where he was cared for by a woman named Leda. Although she was married, Leda nevertheless developed feelings for Daniel, but their circumstances prevented anything coming of it and Daniel eventually departed ("Icon"). When SG-1 returned to her planet a year later ("Ethon"), Jared, Leda's husband, revealed to Daniel that she had been killed when she refused to submit to the Ori.
• Vala Mal Doran: From the moment on the X-303 Prometheus when Daniel laid eyes on Vala Mal Doran, he was in trouble ("Prometheus Unbound"). After that short encounter the pair parted ways until she returned to Stargate Command in Season 9 ("Avalon"), demanding to see "[her] Daniel". From there, as much as they bickered, he grew attached to her, literally and figuratively (though this was partially Vala's fault for linking him to her with a deadly Goa'uld bracelet). When she went missing in "Beachhead", he could only hope that she survived. She did survive and returned almost a year later ("Flesh and Blood"). Since Vala joined the SGC ("Morpheus") and later SG-1 itself ("Memento Mori"), their relationship has been friendlier, or at least less dramatic. Daniel even took her out to dinner, which Vala believed was a date, though Daniel denied any such thing.

[edit] References

1. ^ Says he was about 4½ years old in August 1969 in episode "1969"
2. ^ When asked when his birthday is in the episode "Forever in a Day", Daniel says July 8.

Regular Characters on Stargate SG-1	Edit
Current: Cameron Mitchell | Samantha Carter | Daniel Jackson | Teal'c | Hank Landry | Vala Mal Doran Former: Jack O'Neill | Jonas Quinn | George Hammond