Ancient (Stargate)

The Ancients are a fictional race in the Stargate universe.

The Ancients are the race credited with building the system of stargates. Dr. Daniel Jackson translated many and various writings where the Ancients were referred to as "builders of roads" and throughout SG-1's travels they gathered more information about them. All discoveries relative to the early Ancient race indicate that they were nearly human in form, albeit a kind of superhuman with increased resilience and near magical technological powers. They had evolved originally on Earth several million years ago.

The Ancients explored our galaxy, leaving stargates wherever they went. They established colonies on many of these worlds, which helps to explain why most of the worlds with stargates are generally hospitable to humanoid life.

Eventually, there came a time when the Ancients began to research "ascension" to a higher plane of existence, to escape a mysterious plague that was infiltrating their population. Around this time one of the Ancients' cities, Atlantis, left Earth and went to the Pegasus Galaxy, where it settled on an ocean planet with little land. Overconfident, the Ancients seeded humans and Stargates across Pegasus and eventually encountered the vampire-like Wraith, a humanoid species that fed off the humans the Ancients had seeded. It was speculated in one episode of Stargate Atlantis that the Wraith evolved along a similar path to a parasite, seen in "Thirty Eight Minutes", that attached itself to humans in order to feed. The Ancients and Wraith went to war, and although Wraith technology was inferior to that of the Ancients, they overwhelmed the Pegasus galaxy with sheer numbers. After a long siege, the Ancients of Atlantis returned to Earth via the stargate and submerged Atlantis under the ocean where would await the return of the Ancients (or their descendants) for some 10,000 years. When the Atlantean Ancients returned to the Milky Way, the plague was still spreading. After breeding with the local humans, they ascended to escape the disease.

The Ancients' ascended form, pure energy, allows them to be seen and heard by ordinary humans and then disappear at will. Most, however, adhere to a sort of "Prime Directive" which forbids them from influencing the unascended. Near the end of Season Five, Daniel Jackson became exposed to a lethal amount of radiation and was approached just prior to his death by an ascended Ancient named Oma Desala (played by Mel Harris) whom he had previously met on the planet Kheb (Missing image
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). With her assistance, Daniel ascended and joined the Ancients, but in an early Season Seven episode Daniel was cast down out of his ascended state for over-stretching his authority in an attempt to help SG-1 and to save Abydos.

The Ancients were a member of the alliance of four great races. In addition to the stargates, the Ancients left behind the Repository of the Ancients and the city of Atlantis, as well as many other lesser relics of advanced technology.

Like most of the other races in the Stargate universe, the Ancients are identified with one of Earth's early civilizations; in this case, the Roman Empire. They share the epithet "builder of roads", and the Ancients' language appears to be a precursor of Latin. The last known contact between physical Ancients and Earth humans took place ten thousand years ago when the survivors of Atlantis returned to Earth via the Antarctic stargate, well before the founding of Rome. During season six of Stargate SG-1 an Ancient woman was found frozen in Antarctica and revived herself when thawed, but she was still infected with the plague and died very shortly thereafter. The history of Ancient influence on Earth is not well known. On at least one occasion Ancients have referred to humanity as their "second evolution" and some groups of humans have developed primitive Ancient-like mental abilities, suggesting they may have established humanity as their eventual successor.

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