Ancient (Stargate Atlantis)

"The builders of the Stargates."

- An Asgard.

Ancients or The Ancients, also known as Ancestors/The Ancestors, Lanteans, and Gate Builders, or Anquietas in their language, were those Alterans who left their home galaxy for the Milky Way and seeded it with life. They are one of the most advanced races known to have existed, having evolved for millions of years prior to the present day and reaching their level of technology long before humanity evolved on Earth. They are best known as the builders of the Stargates, Atlantis, and Destiny. Most of the Ancients have ascended to a higher plane of existence with near infinite knowledge and powerful abilities.

It is not known if they referred to themselves as Ancients while they were living on Earth several million years ago. It is likely that they began to use that name after their return to the Milky Way when they would have been ancient compared to the relatively young species of Humans who had populated Earth.

The First Exodus
"Well, it stands to reason they weren't always called the Ancients."

- Daniel Jackson

Tens of millions of years ago, the Alterans, the first evolution of humanity in four galaxies, lived together as one society on an evolutionary path to Ascension in the Alteran Home Galaxy. A split then occurred among the Alterans, dividing them into two factions: the Ancients (who still called themselves the Alterans), who were more secular and science-oriented, and the Ori, who became more religious.

Eventually, the Ori became so extreme in their beliefs that they tried to wipe out the Ancients. The Ancients' numbers were too few, and they were ultimately forced to hide their ways. Though they considered using their knowledge to defend themselves, they faced a war of attrition, one they ultimately believed that they could not win. To avoid genocide, the Ancients built a ship and left their galaxy, while the Ori remained. They both eventually ascended, but their paths continued to differ.

The Milky Way
"Once upon a time, there was a race of people that went on a great journey through space, across the universe. They were called the Alterans. After much time they found a great belt of stars. The Alterans named their new home Avalon and built many 'Astria Porta'."

- Daniel Jackson, reading from an Ancient book found in the Avalon vault. After many thousands of years (60+ million years ago ) the Ancients discovered the Milky Way, and first colonized the planets Dakara and Terra, which would later be known as Earth. They also built many Astria Porta, developed Zero Point Modules, and established colonies on many of the planets of the Milky Way, most notably Terra, Proclarush Taonas, Vis Uban, P3R-272 and Heliopolis. The earliest outposts are thought to be established approximately fifty million years ago, around when they also built the Destiny and Seed ships to travel through the Universe. Their knowledge spread throughout the galaxy, evident by the structures they left behind and their Repository of knowledge. At some point during this time they also formed an alliance with the Asgard, Nox and the Furlings becoming a superpower within the galaxy.

The Second Exodus
Approximately five to ten million years ago, a virulent plague nearly wiped out the Ancients. Originating at the construction site for their new capital known as Vis Uban, the deadly disease would spread across much of the galaxy. They attempted to travel back in time, to stop the plague from spreading, but their efforts were unsuccessful. Unable to cure it, the surviving Ancients left Earth in a huge space-borne city, which they named Atlantis, on course for the Pegasus galaxy.


 * Dr. Daniel Jackson postulated that the Ori may have been responsible for the plague, given the similarities to the Prior plague released on Earth. However, nothing confirms that the Ori were responsible for unleashing the original plague on the galaxy.

Return to the Milky Way
After their desperate departure from Atlantis 10,000 years ago, the Ancients returned to Earth. Upon their return, the Ancients found Humans in the hunter-gatherer stage of evolution. The Ancients were unable to restart their empire, so many Ancients bred with the native humans to set a path for the future and create future civilizations, while others went on and ascended.

Even after their race had vanished from the galaxy, their knowledge lived on as the Asgard studied a piece of it for possibly centuries or thousands of years as stated by Thor: "We have studied the Ancient's Repository of Knowledge for as long as I can remember and we have barely scratched the surface". It would later be used on multiple occasions including saving the Asgard from destruction by the Replicators. Eventually the Ancient Merlin would deascend himself after coming to believe that the Ori were a threat that needed to be destroyed. As Merlin began building a weapon capable of destroying Ascended beings and was doing so with Ascended knowledge, the Ancients assigned Morgan Le Fay, a rival of Merlin's, to watch over and stop him if necessary. Eventually Merlin completed his weapon, but Morgan destroyed it as ordered by the other Ancients. However, Morgan came to believe that the Ori were the threat Merlin foresaw and hid Merlin in stasis so if necessary, he could one day rebuild the weapon.

Ori Crusade
Eventually, due to the actions of Doctor Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran, the Ancient's old enemy the Ori became aware of the existence of human life in the Milky Way Galaxy and began a crusade to convert all humans in the galaxy to Origin in order to gain more power with the intention to confront the Ancients in battle and destroy them. In order to avoid inciting the Ancients directly until they were ready, the Ori sent their Priors and human followers to do their work of conversion, even managing to impregnate Vala Mal Doran to give birth to an Ori in human form named Adria to lead their armies as Adria was human at the time. However, the Ancients did little to nothing to stop members of their race from acting to help as long as they didn't do it directly as an Ascended being: the Ancients allowed Orlin to descend to explain everything to the Tau'ri and help develop a cure for the Prior plague, they allowed Morgan to subtly inform Daniel and Vala of where to start looking for the Sangraal, Merlin's anti-Ori weapon and didn't interfere when she revealed herself until she tried to tell them exactly where to look and despite the fact that the Sangraal was being built with Merlin's advanced knowledge and had the risk of falling into Adria's hands and being used against them, they let Daniel and SG-1 finish and ultimately deploy it. SG-1 theorized that they did this either as they knew it would work and wanted it to, or knew it wouldn't and thus didn't care while Adria believed that they did it as they knew it would successfully wipe out the Ori and wanted them gone.

Either way, the Ori were destroyed, but Adria took their position and power when she Ascended and the Ancients were forced to keep her from continuing her work in the Milky Way as an Ascended being. Despite this, the threat to them had been mostly removed but at least Morgan, who had been exiled for her actions but not forced to return to human form, believed that the humans of the Milky Way deserved the Ancients help with dealing with the Ori followers as killing the Ori had saved the Ancients and began acting to lead SG-1 to the Ark of Truth, a device capable of brainwashing anyone exposed to it to whatever truth is programmed in, in this case that the Ori aren't gods. When Morgan began to interfere again, the Ancients didn't intervene and stop her again, perhaps acknowledging that she was right and she was able to act more openly as she ended up going to the Alteran Home Galaxy where the only other Ascended being was Adria. With the efforts of Morgan and SG-1, the Ori followers learned the truth about their "gods" and Adria's power was diminished to the point that Morgan was able to engage her in eternal battle and end the threat of the Ori and their threat to the Ancients once and for all.

Physiology


"In fact, they were first. We're the second evolution of this form."

- Carson Beckett

Over the tens of millions of years of their existence, the Ancients gradually evolved to become much more advanced than baseline humans, and the neurological makeup of the Ancients was much more complex than that of the average human. As their brains further evolved, their intelligence and capacity to store knowledge greatly increased, allowing them to develop some of the most advanced technology encountered thus far. Towards the end of their evolutionary development, but still before they ascended, they also developed various advanced mental powers including extraordinary sensory abilities, the ability to heal others with a touch, partial Telepathy, and powerful Telekinesis. The once-ascended Merlin returned to human form in the most advanced genetic state a human could reach, with the ability to sense the presence of, and activate, a Stargate and generating energy beams created with his mind. It is likely that just before an Ancient reaches ascension, this is the final evolutionary state. Some types of Ancient technology can also create this state in an unevolved human without ascending them.

Within their genetic makeup was a particular gene, the so-called Ancient Technology Activation gene, used to activate and interact with some of their more sensitive technology, like Control chairs and Puddle Jumpers. It is still unknown if the gene was naturally occurring within the Ancients' physiology, or the result of genetic manipulation.

Ascension
"Well at some point during their evolution the Ancients reached [an advanced] stage of being where they were able to rid themselves of their physical bodies and rise to a higher plane of existence, one in which they live as pure energy."

- Rodney McKay Eventually, many of the Ancients became able to separate from their physical bodies and live eternally as pure energy on a higher plane of existence with an infinitely increased capacity for knowledge, wisdom and unfathomable power including the ability to destroy entire armies and space fleets with a mere thought.

Architecture


"...a remarkable feat of engineering. The Ancients really knew what they were doing."

- Samantha Carter

Despite being an advanced, industrialized society, the Ancients seemed to have a preference for stone structures enriched with Naquadah for strength while in the Milky Way galaxy. There were also two instances of a large monument with an enthroned figure housing advanced technology, such as the Repository of knowledge and the Dakara superweapon. Even their technology appeared stone like. The Stargates had their symbols engraved on them, and spin when dialing. They were also known for writing information on stone tablets. It is not known why this was, however it seems that any other source of technology would have proven useless because they would also have to be on the same level of tech to even extract that information. Naquadah enriched stone (or just Naquadah for the Stargates), it seems, is their preferred storage because of its ability to stay intact for millions of years while paper would degrade and anything tech based would require a power source that would eventually become depleted.

However, starting from at least 30 million years ago (according to the star map on Proclarush Taonas), the Ancients turned to a metallic-looking architecture, displayed in the city-ship Atlantis. This form of architecture was continued during their existence in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Upon returning to the Milky Way, they constructed in a stone appearance again. One suggestion for this is that, when compared with the Ancient technology in the Milky Way, the ancient structures in Pegasus are relatively new. As for the Ancient architecture created after the return to the Milky Way, most of the Ancients had ascended by then and the ones that were left wanted to fit in with human culture of the time (for example, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table).

Philosophy
"If we interfere, we are no better than the Ori."

- Ganos Lal The Ancients are well known for their belief in free will and will go to great lengths to ensure that others are allowed to make their own decisions without outside interference.

Mortal
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, through argument and debate, but, most of all, freedom of will."

- Alteran woman 2 The Ancients believed in science, reason, and logic. Knowledge and enlightenment were fundamental to their world view. They believed that the universe was to be studied, and that scientific experimentation was essential to gaining understanding. Most importantly, the Ancients believed in free will. They believed that the right to choose whatever a person wants to believe is more important than anything else. This has been to their detriment, however, as it has been that very belief in free will that forces them to respect the rights of the Ori in believing their fanaticism. They also believed that they did not have the right to restrict the freedom of the followers of Origin to believe in the Ori by "brainwashing" the true nature of the Ori into their followers for much the same reasons.

Ascended


"Are not the Ancients forbidden from interfering with the existence of mortals?"

- Teal'c

Retaining their beliefs in free will as well as rules of non-interference, the highest law of the Ascended Ancients is the following: "Do not accelerate the natural ascension process of those beneath or interfere in their natural life, and ultimately, death."

To accelerate the natural Ascension of any living being is a high crime among their people, and the Others, those who follow their rules of non-interference, have taken harsh measures against those that break them. Oma Desala was an outcast for her efforts in helping others to ascend, and she was forced to watch Anubis use his knowledge to conquer the Milky Way. Orlin was also outcast when he used his powers to help the people of Velona to construct an Orbital weapon to protect themselves, but then intended to use the weapon against other races. Similarly, Chaya Sar was sentenced to protect only the people of Proculus when she destroyed a Wraith fleet over the planet.

There is a real, physical transfer of energy to the Ori that occurs through a human being's worship of them. For it to have a measurable effect, it requires massive numbers of humans relinquishing their will. This is one of the main reasons the Ancients have so strongly believed in strict non-interference in the lower planes, because the temptation to manipulate and align lower life forms in some order for your own purposes could result in this type of abusive corruption, as they see it. On top of this, the long term dependence upon such power leads to vulnerability when and if those worshipers are removed, as was demonstrated when the Ark of Truth was revealed. The result was a weakened ascended being, while still powerful was significantly weaker than the ascended being who never depended upon worshipers to begin with. While this has lead to what might be considered draconian or cruel punishments to those who violate this rule, it stems from their fierce belief in free will, and that to use their powers in such a way would make them no better than the Ori.

Technology
"Well, keep in mind this is the race that built the Stargates. They did everything big."

- Daniel Jackson

By the time they ascended, the Ancients had gathered more knowledge than any other known race. Even now, that knowledge is far superior to that of the Tau'ri, the Goa'uld, and the Wraith. Only Ori technology, which was most likely created with ascended knowledge by the Priors, and Asgard technology can compare. Noted for its massive redundancies and the extensive use of Control crystals, Ancient technology is remarkably similar, in both appearance and function, to that of the Ori, as they both once lived together as one society: the Alterans. Ancient technology is also the most resilient ever seen, remaining intact for millions of years without even minor signs of deterioration or decrease in performance.

Of all their technological creations the Stargates, Destiny, and Atlantis are their most famous, but they have developed devices as diverse and complicated as flying cities, advanced healing devices, beaming technology, zero-point power sources, Long-range communication devices, seek-and-destroy projectiles and even genetic manipulation devices. Most of their weapons technology was designed and used during their centuries-long war with the Wraith in the Pegasus Galaxy, however after returning to the Milky Way the Ancients had no further need for either more powerful weapons or defensive shields (as their only potential enemies were the far inferior Goa'uld), so they became somewhat lacking when compared to their other technological marvels created during this time.

As a safeguard, most Ancient technology requires the presence of the Ancient Technology Activation gene to use, but in a large number of instances the gene is only required to activate it. In such cases, once active anyone can use the technology, regardless of whether or not they possess the gene. The only times the ATA gene is required for continuous use is in important and potentially dangerous pieces of technology, such as the Control chair.

Predating the ATA gene technology, the Milky Way era technology, created after the Ancients' first exodus from their home galaxy fundamentally shaped their newer creations. Perhaps the most famous technology from this era (10-60 million years ago) is the Destiny.

Destiny is a ship in the Ancient fleet, which was constructed and launched around sixty million years ago from Earth. The Ancients launched several automated ships prior to Destiny, each with the purpose of constructing and seeding Stargates throughout the numerous galaxies they crossed, with Destiny itself following in their path to explore those planets and piece together fragments of a complex message embedded in the fabric of the universe itself. After beginning this process, the Ancients initially planned to wait until the ship reached a sufficient distance from Earth to board it. However, because of other endeavors, such as Ascension, they never followed through on the plan. Because of this, Destiny has continued on a pre-programmed path on its journey throughout the stars, alone, for millions of years. With the arrival of a Tau'ri expedition in 2009, Destiny got its first crew.

Starships
The Ancient/Lantean Fleet was one of the most advanced fleets known to exist, existing not only in the home galaxy of the Ancients, but also the Milky Way and later Pegasus galaxy.

Known Ancients

 * For a list of Lanteans, see known Lanteans.

Mortal

 * Ayiana
 * Janus
 * Amelius

Ascended

 * Oma Desala (Engaged in eternal battle with Anubis)
 * Orlin (Descended)
 * Merlin (Descended and died of old age later)
 * Morgan Le Fay (Engaged in eternal battle with Adria)
 * Athar

Known Milky Way Galaxy Outposts

 * Camelot
 * Dakara
 * Proclarush Taonas (Presumed destroyed)
 * P3R-272
 * P3X-439
 * P4X-639
 * P9X-391
 * Antarctic outpost
 * Vis Uban
 * Solar Observation Outpost

Known Pegasus Galaxy Outposts

 * City of M7G-677
 * Taranis (Destroyed)
 * Dagan
 * Doranda outpost (Destroyed)
 * Lantea Atlantus (Moved to M35-117, then to Earth, then back to Pegasus)
 * Lord Protector's Planet Tower (Atlantis sister City-ship)