Merlin (Stargate)

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 in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.

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. 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 a 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. It becomes known three years later that Ayiana's virus bears similarities to the biological weapon created by the Ori.

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. Morgan eventually found the Sangraal and followed her orders to destroy the weapon. However, over the course of her assignment, she came to agree that Ori could some day become a threat to the Ancients themselves, and so she hid Merlin in stasis, knowing that some day he might be needed to recreate the weapon. She then went about creating the legend of the Sangraal on the planet which would lead to Merlin, whose location was guarded with Ancient riddles and challenges for anyone who went looking for the original weapon.

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