Stargate recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 1994 · Film

Stargate recap

In 1928, a giant ring covered in symbols is dug up at Giza. In the present day, Daniel Jackson, a ridiculed Egyptologist, is recruited by the US Air Force and works out that the symbols are star constellations, coordinates for a gateway to another world. Colonel Jack O'Neil, a suicidal officer grieving his son, leads a team through with Daniel, and they arrive on Abydos, a desert planet on the far side of the known universe. O'Neil secretly carries a nuclear bomb to destroy the gate if there is a threat. The team cannot get home without the symbols for Earth. They meet human miners, descendants of people taken from ancient Egypt, who worship Ra. Daniel is given a wife, Sha're, and finds writing that the miners are forbidden to learn. Ra, an alien who lives inside a human body and claims to be the sun god, arrives in a pyramid-shaped ship.

How Stargate ends

O'Neil and Daniel lead the miners in a revolt, and Ra is killed when they beam the nuclear bomb onto his departing ship. Ra's guards kill most of the team, but O'Neil, inspired by the young Skaara and the people of Abydos, chooses to live. Daniel is killed and revived in Ra's sarcophagus. Daniel stays on Abydos with Sha're, and O'Neil returns home through the gate.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 02 · 1997 · Series

Stargate SG-1 recap

In season 1, a year after the film, the Goa'uld Apophis attacks through the gate and abducts Sha're and Skaara to host Goa'uld. Colonel Jack O'Neill, Captain Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson and Teal'c, Apophis's First Prime who defects, form SG-1 under General George Hammond and explore the galaxy, meeting the Asgard and the Tok'ra, Goa'uld who oppose their own kind. In season 3, Sha're dies at Teal'c's hand after bearing a child of two Goa'uld, and the Replicators, machines that consume technology, appear. In season 4, SG-1 allies with the Tok'ra against the System Lords. In season 5, Apophis is finally destroyed by the Replicators, Anubis, a half-ascended Goa'uld, rises, and Daniel dies of radiation and ascends to a higher plane; in season 6, Jonas Quinn takes his place until Daniel returns. In season 7, O'Neill downloads Ancient knowledge and uses an Antarctic weapon to destroy Anubis's fleet over Earth. In season 8, O'Neill commands the SGC, the human-form Replicators are destroyed, Anubis is stopped, and the Jaffa win their freedom. In season 9, O'Neill leaves for Washington, Cameron Mitchell leads SG-1 under General Hank Landry, and Vala Mal Doran joins after accidentally alerting the Ori, ascended beings in another galaxy, to the Milky Way. The Ori's Priors spread their religion, and Vala gives birth to Adria, the Ori's chosen leader. Season 10 follows the war against the Ori's fleet and the search for Merlin's weapon, the Sangraal, which finally kills the Ori.

How Stargate SG-1 ends

The series ends with the Ori dead but Adria still leading their army, a story finished in The Ark of Truth. In the final episode, "Unending", Carter traps the Odyssey in a time-dilation field to escape an Ori attack, and the team lives aboard for fifty years until Teal'c, now elderly, stays behind to reset time so the attack never happens. The team carries on without remembering it; only Teal'c knows. The Ba'al clones and Goa'uld remnants are dealt with in Continuum.

No. 03 · 2002 · Series · optional

Stargate Infinity recap

Set about thirty years after SG-1, this animated series follows Major Gus Bonner, who is framed for disobeying orders when the reptilian Tlak'kahn attack Stargate Command to steal an alien chrysalis. Bonner escapes through the gate with a group of young cadets: his niece Stacey, who believes he is a traitor; Seattle Montoya, who has visions; the sarcastic R.J. Harrison; and the half-alien Ec'co, who can fix almost anything. The chrysalis hatches into Draga, a young alien who may be one of the Ancients and who shares a link with Seattle. Over its single season of 26 episodes, the team travels from world to world, meeting different cultures and learning a lesson in most episodes, while the Tlak'kahn commander Da'kyll hunts them. They search for proof that will clear their names, and for Nephestis, a shapeshifter who framed Bonner. Da'kyll's second in command, Pahk'kal, and the Tlak'kahn want Draga for themselves, so the chase follows the cadets wherever the gate takes them.

How Stargate Infinity ends

It ends unresolved: the series was cancelled after one season, and Bonner never clears his name. In the last episode, "The Long Haul", Draga accidentally dials the gate and the team arrives in Mexico, where they find another Stargate at a dig site and a chance to track down the alien who framed Bonner. The series is not considered part of the Stargate canon.

No. 04 · 2004 · Series

Stargate Atlantis recap

In season 1, an expedition led by Dr. Elizabeth Weir travels to the Pegasus galaxy and finds Atlantis, the Ancients' city, under the sea. Major John Sheppard, who can operate Ancient technology, accidentally wakes the Wraith, life-sucking aliens who cull humans, and the team of Sheppard, the scientist Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan and Lieutenant Aiden Ford fights for survival, also clashing with the Genii. The season ends with a Wraith fleet attacking the city. In season 2, the Earth ship Daedalus saves Atlantis, the runner Ronon Dex joins the team, Ford goes rogue on a Wraith enzyme, and the team turns a Wraith into a human, Michael, who later becomes an enemy. In season 3, the Asurans, Replicators built by the Ancients, attack, and a group of returning Ancients briefly reclaim the city; Atlantis flies to a new planet after an Asuran attack, and Weir is critically wounded. In season 4, Weir is lost to the Replicators, Samantha Carter takes command, the team works uneasily with a Wraith they call Todd, and Michael creates hybrid soldiers and kidnaps the pregnant Teyla. In season 5, Richard Woolsey commands, Teyla's son Torren is born, and the team finally kills Michael.

How Stargate Atlantis ends

In the last episode, the team stops a heavily powered Wraith super-hive from reaching Earth, and Atlantis lands in the bay off San Francisco. Todd helps them learn the threat. The Daedalus and Sheppard, in a jumper with a nuclear warhead, fight the hive while Atlantis flies to Earth. The planned Atlantis film was never made, so the series ends with the city on Earth.

No. 05 · 2008 · Film

Stargate: The Ark of Truth recap

After the Ori die, their daughter Adria, now ascended, keeps their armies conquering the Milky Way. SG-1, now Cameron Mitchell, Samantha Carter, Teal'c, Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran, searches for the Ark of Truth, an Ancient device that can show the Ori's followers that their gods are false. On Dakara, they capture Tomin, Vala's husband and an Ori commander, who turns against his Prior. Daniel learns the real Ark is in the Ori galaxy, and the team takes the Odyssey through the Supergate. James Marrick, an official sent by the International Oversight Advisory, has secretly built a Replicator to use against the Ori, and it escapes and takes over the ship. On the Ori world of Celestis, the team finds the Ark but is captured, and Teal'c is shot. Morgan le Fay, an Ancient, revives Teal'c and frees Daniel, explaining how the Ark can break Adria's power.

How Stargate: The Ark of Truth ends

SG-1 turns the Ark on the Doci, the Ori leader, who sees the truth and tells all the Priors, ending the crusade. Mitchell kills Marrick and Carter shuts down the Replicators. Morgan locks Adria in an eternal struggle. Back in the Milky Way, a Prior is exposed to the Ark, spreading the truth there too. Tomin goes home to lead his people, Vala stays with SG-1, and the Ark is taken to Area 51.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 06 · 2008 · Film

Stargate: Continuum recap

The Tok'ra prepare to remove Ba'al, the last System Lord, from his host, while SG-1 and Jack O'Neill attend. Ba'al says he is a clone and the real Ba'al has a plan. In 1939, the real Ba'al travels back in time and boards the Achilles, the ship carrying the Stargate to the United States, killing the crew; the captain, Cameron Mitchell's grandfather, dies after throwing his bomb overboard. In the present, people begin to vanish: Teal'c, Vala and then O'Neill. Carter, Daniel and Mitchell escape through the gate and arrive inside the frozen wreck of the Achilles in the Arctic, where an alternate O'Neill rescues them. In this timeline there was no Stargate program, Carter died in a shuttle accident, and Mitchell was never born. A year later, Ba'al's Goa'uld fleet, with Qetesh in Vala's body as his queen and Teal'c as his First Prime, attacks Earth.

How Stargate: Continuum ends

Mitchell travels back to 1929, waits ten years, and kills Ba'al aboard the Achilles in 1939, restoring history. Qetesh kills Ba'al in the alternate timeline and seizes his time machine, and Carter and Daniel die in Russia getting Mitchell through. Teal'c, mortally wounded, takes Qetesh with him. In the restored present, SG-1 watches the extraction go normally with no memory of what happened, and Daniel wonders aloud what Ba'al meant by his fail-safe.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 07 · 2009 · Series

Stargate Universe recap

In season 1, an attack by the Lucian Alliance forces people at Icarus Base, a secret site researching the ninth chevron of the Stargate, to flee through the gate. They arrive aboard Destiny, an Ancient ship launched millions of years ago and now billions of light years from Earth, unable to get home. The survivors include Colonel Everett Young, the obsessive scientist Nicholas Rush, the young genius Eli Wallace, Lieutenant Matthew Scott, Senator Armstrong's daughter Chloe, Sergeant Ronald Greer and the civilian Camile Wray. They fight over leadership, scrounge supplies on planets as the ship drops out of faster-than-light flight, and visit Earth by swapping bodies through Ancient communication stones. Rush hides that he has found the ship's bridge. The season ends with the Lucian Alliance boarding Destiny. In season 2, the Alliance is defeated and its survivors join the crew, Rush learns that Destiny's mission is to study a message hidden in the cosmic background radiation, Chloe is changed by an alien infection, and an army of hostile drones blocks every stop the ship makes.

How Stargate Universe ends

In the final episode, the crew enter stasis pods for a three-year jump to escape the drones, but one pod is broken, and Eli stays awake alone with two weeks of life support to fix it. The series was cancelled, so it ends with Eli looking out at the stars. The story was never continued on screen, so the crew's fate and the meaning of the message stay unknown.

No. 08 · 2018 · Series · optional

Stargate Origins recap

In 1939, Catherine Langford and her father, Professor Paul Langford, are studying the Stargate in a warehouse in Giza when Nazi occultist Dr. Wilhelm Brucke takes them hostage and forces the professor through the gate. Catherine recruits Captain James Beal and Wasif, an Egyptian officer in the British army, and follows them to Abydos. There they find Aset, a Goa'uld once resurrected by Ra who is now rebelling against him. Brucke offers Aset an alliance: Nazi help to overthrow Ra in exchange for the precious metal naquadah and thousands of slaves sent from Earth. Brucke's camera operator, Eva Reinhardt, begins to doubt him. Catherine learns the symbols to dial home, and Aset turns on Brucke, who is killed by Eva. Aset wipes the Langfords' memories, sends the young Abydonian Kasuf back to his people as their leader, and tells Catherine to return one day with a team to defeat Ra. The series was released in short web episodes and later cut into a film.

How Stargate Origins ends

The Langfords return to Earth with no memory of Abydos, after Ra arrives and destroys Aset and her temple, and Beal sends them home before being killed. Back on Earth, the United States takes the Stargate, and Catherine keeps a piece of strange metal, sure she will see the gate again, which leads to her role in the 1994 film, where she brings Daniel Jackson to the gate.