In the Stargate fictional universe, the Ancients, also known as the Alterans and Lanteans, are the most advanced race known to have existed, having evolved millions of years prior to the present day and reaching their level of technology long before Human life evolved on Earth.
This is a list of the Ancient characters that have appeared so far in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.
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Ona Grauer played Ayiana, the first living Ancient that modern-day humans encounter. She was left behind on the Ancient outpost in Antarctica between five and ten million years ago when her people took the city of Atlantis to the Pegasus Galaxy. She is seen in the opening of the Pilot episode of Stargate: Atlantis as the Ancients leave Earth for the Pegasus Galaxy. [1] Researchers unearth her in a block of ice millions of years later in "Frozen", naming her after the Cherokee word for "eternal bloom" (the character's true name is never revealed). Ayiana proves alive when they defrost her, and learns the English language within hours. SG-1 deduce that the Ancients are advanced humans who evolved (not necessarily on Earth) millions of years ago and spawned humans throughout the Milky Way as their second evolution. As Ayiana is the unwitting carrier of the disease that ravaged her people millions of years ago, Ayiana infects all of the researchers, SG-1 and Dr. Fraiser. Ayiana uses her abilities to heal them, but weakened from the process, dies back at the SGC.[2] It becomes known three years later that Ayiana's virus bears similarities to the biological weapon created by the Ori.[3]
Sarah Strange played Ganos Lal, an ascended Ancient who gave rise to the Arthurian legend of Morgan le Fay. In the Stargate mythology, she was originally an inhabitant of the Ancient city of Atlantis, where a holographic learning program based on her image taught Lantean children about Ancient technology, history and science. When it became clear that the Ancients had been defeated by the Wraith, she fled back to Earth with the other surviving Ancients and secluded herself in meditation until her ascension. When fellow ascended Ancient Moros (Merlin, Myrddin) descended in order to construct a weapon to fight the Ori that could be used against the Ancients themselves, Morgan le Fay was assigned to watch him and, if necessary, prevent his completion of the weapon. Like Myrddin, she eventually came to believe that the Ori could some day become a threat to the Ancients themselves.[4] Morgan eventually found the Sangraal and followed her orders to destroy the weapon. Having come to believe in the threat the Ori posed, She hid Merlin in stasis knowing that some day he may be needed to recreate the weapon, so kept him in an Ancient suspension pod on a planet where he would be safe. She then went about creating the legend of the Sangraal on the planet which would lead to Merlin along with Ancient riddles and challenges for anyone who went looking for the original weapon.[5]
When SG-1 comes to Atlantis to search for Myrddin's weapon in "The Pegasus Project", Morgan le Fay decides to covertly help Daniel Jackson by posing as her own hologram. Daniel Jackson and Vala recognize her as an ascended Ancient and push her to reveal more information, but Morgan le Fay hesitates. The moment she attempts to give more information about Myrddin's weapon, her Ascended peers stop her in mid-sentence, "Merlin's weapon is not...".[4] Morgan is banished by the Others, but she helps SG-1 in the Ori galaxy in The Ark of Truth. She heals Teal'c when he lays dying and appears before Daniel in the form of Merlin after he has been tortured by a Prior. He sees through her disguise, which she then drops. She says she has done everything to help them that she can (presumably she is more free to act as the Ancients aren't in the Ori galaxy) and tells Daniel how to use the Ark to stop the Ori crusade once and for all. Morgan gives Vala the sequence to activate the Ark, and engages Adria in battle when the Ark has greatly diminished Adria's power down to the same level as any Ascended being.[6]
Played by Matthew Walker, Moros, also known as Myrddin or Merlin, was the High Councilor of Atlantis during the days of the first siege of the city, and one of the most influential Ancients in the series. Although most of his backstory is revealed through story reconstruction, Myrddin appears several times before SG-1 finally meet him in person. Myrddin is introduced in the Atlantis episode "Before I Sleep", where an alternate Elizabeth Weir meets him as Moros when he was still living on Atlantis.[7] A visual record of him still remains in the Atlantis database.[4] Myrddin also appears as a Merlin hologram to SG-1, giving them information about his background and his motivations.[8][9] Moros is named after Moros from Greek legend, the personification of impending doom and destruction, while his name Merlin refers to the Arthurian legend. Matthew Walker was nominated for a Leo Award in 2007 for "Best Supporting Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series" for this role.[10]
After the Wraith threat forced the Ancient inhabitants to return to Earth, Myrddin chose to seclude himself in meditation and learned to ascend.[4] When he became convinced that the ascended Ori had become a threat to the humans in the Milky Way and even the Ancients, he chose to become human again while retaining most of the knowledge and powers he had gained through his ascension. Myrddin entrusted his secrets to a small number of noblemen on Earth, among them King Arthur. During this time, Myrddin also carved a tablet with an Ancient cipher leading to Avalon, which set the events of seasons 9 and 10 of SG-1 in motion.[8] The weapon Myrddin sought to construct to defeat the Ori became known as the Sangraal, Blood Stone or Holy Grail. However, the Ancients did not support his research to design weapons that could eventually be used against them, and sent the ascended Ancient Morgan le Fay to watch him.[4] Myrddin therefore constructed a dimension-shifting device known as Arthur's Mantle to conceal his work from them.[11] In this device he hid the address of a planet where he supposedly hid the weapon, Camelot, and left more clues about the location of the Sangraal.[9]
On their search for the Sangraal, SG-1 finally find Myrddin in stasis in "The Quest" and awaken him. Myrddin attempts to build the Sangraal, but his body has deteriorated too much during the 1,000 years of stasis that he transfers his consciousness into a modified Repository of Knowledge for Daniel Jackson to use to complete the task. Myrddin dies shortly after reconfiguring the device,[5] but his consciousness remains in Daniel Jackson. Merlin and Jackson hatch a plot to complete the Sangraal. Shortly after Jackson deploys the Sangraal to the Ori home galaxy through a Supergate, the pre-programmed restoration Merlin encoded into Jackson's DNA activated, restoring Jackson to a state before he looked into the repository, destroying Merlin's consciousness.[12]
Played by Carla Boudreau and Mel Harris, Oma Desala ("Mother Nature") is an ascended being who goes against the ways of the Ancients. It is unclear if she is an Ancient herself, as the Ancients Orlin and Merlin give different accounts of knowing Oma but it is likely as Merlin has a knowledge of her actions and he's over ten thousand years old.[13][14] Although Oma once made the great mistake of helping the fallen System Lord Anubis ascend and is now banished by the Ancients,[15] Oma is still convinced of her responsibility to guide those beneath to the "Great Path" of enlightenment, even if this interferes in the lower planes of existence.[13] She and her followers walk a fine line between going against the wishes of the other Ancients and maintaining their rules enough to not bring down their wrath.[16] Oma therefore only guides individuals to the path, leaving the final decision to travel the great path to them.[17]
SG-1 first encounter Oma Desala in a Buddhist-style temple on the planet Kheb in their search for Shifu, the young son of Apophis and Sha're. When a group of Jaffa attacks the temple, Oma Desala protects SG-1 and the temple in her non-corporeal form. Daniel decides to leave Shifu in Oma's care,[18] and she ages Shifu to the state of a young boy within one year and teaches him to suppress his evil Goa'uld genetic memory. Shifu eventually ascends with her help.[19] Over a year later, Oma helps Daniel Jackson to ascend after his fatal radiation poisoning at the end of season 5.[17] At the end of season 6, Oma helps Skaara and the entire Abydonian population to ascend after Anubis's attack, but she prevents Daniel from using his ascended powers against Anubis.[16]
As Daniel broke the ascendeds' rules, Oma is forced to de-ascend him and to take away his memories (his idea) and abandon him naked on a planet (her idea).[20] However, it later appears that Oma did not completely strip away Jackson's memories, but did in fact bury them deep in his subconscious.[21] Oma Desala appears one final time to Daniel Jackson almost two years later in "Reckoning". Oma brings Jackson, who was killed another time, to an intermediate level between ascension and mortal existence and again attempts to convince him to ascend. After ascending Daniel for a second time, however, Oma sacrifices herself to enter into an eternal battle with Anubis to prevent him from wreaking further havoc on the galaxy.[15]
According to Merlin, Oma focuses on the individual when she helps them out and while she has the best of intentions, Merlin counters this by saying so did the Ori when they started out.
Orlin, played by Sean Patrick Flanery, is an outcast Ancient. He was forced to remain on the dead planet Velona for breaking the rules of the Ancients by giving advanced technology to the planet's people, who immediately abused it. When SG-1 research the weapon in "Ascension", Orlin is immediately taken with Major Carter and leaves the planet with SG-1, concealed in an invisible form. He shows himself to Carter the next morning at her house, but no-one at the SGC believes Carter's story. Orlin later informs Carter of his backstory, and returns to his former human state in the hope of spending the rest of his life with her, giving up his powers as an ascended. When the NID eventually moves in on Carter's house weeks later, Orlin escapes through a Stargate that he has built in Carter's basement. Back at Velona, Orlin attempts to stop the Tau'ri research of the weapon and is shot by a member of SG-16. The Ancients believe him redeemed and re-ascend him, allowing him to prevent another catastrophe.[13]
Orlin returns in the form of a human child (played by Cameron Bright) in "The Fourth Horseman". He chose this form as it is able to retain a fraction of the knowledge of the Ancients. He tells the SGC of the feud between Ancients and Ori, false promises of ascension and Origin, and how the Ori gain power. He succeeds in developing a line of research into a cure for the Ori plague, but as his gambit with taking a child's form fails, he quickly loses his memory, suffers significant brain damage from holding on that long and is eventually interned in a mental institution on Earth.[22]
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