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Toasted Pixel Presents: Scifi Cable Guide, Part I: A Primer on StarGate SG-1

For the next three days, we'll be giving you a guide to the biggest scifi action/dramas starting new seasons on TV this week. One of the hottest shows right now is StarGate SG-1. It is now (starting January 6th) in its unbelievable TENTH season! That's quite impressive for a scifi show, especially one on a cable network (the SciFi Channel). It's such a huge show, with ten years of story behind it, that it would be difficult for new viewers to simply jump in and understand all that goes on in new episodes. For those still unfamiliar with this immensely popular show, we're offering a primer on its backstory. Enjoy!

The First Race of Humans The premise to the StarGate universe is that there were humans traveling the galaxy and beyond, millions of years before our earth civilizations ever developed. The first race of humanity was called the Ancients. The Ancients were a wise, benevolent race. They were beautiful, with intelligence, kindness, and wisdom suffusing their faces, speech, and actions. The Ancients were also brilliant at science. No other race in the galaxy matched their technology. After exploring our Milky Way galaxy, they eventually left to another galaxy, leaving behind all their advanced technology, which includes the great galactic network of StarGates (StarGates are portals between planets that people can travel through).

The Second Race of Humans After the brilliant, beautiful, and benevolent Ancients left, a second race of humans spread through our galaxy. Cruel, aggressive, and violent, this second race worshipped pegan African gods, carried spears that shot lasers, built pyramids on every planet, and forced every race in the galaxy into slavery and into worshipping the pegan African gods like Apophis. Their technology was primitive compared to most other space-faring races, but their brutality and legions of spear-swinging soldiers made up for their lack of intelligence in subjugating everyone. They used the existing network of StarGates to keep their hold on slave planets, since they didn't have the evolved minds to make devices nearly as powerful as the Ancients'. Thus begins the story of StarGate SG-1. Earthings of the 20th Century eventually discovered a StarGate buried in Egypt, which is when the scientists of the West realized that every even slightly advanced African civilization or discovery in history was actually created by aliens, and by no means by Africans themselves. When Americans started to explore the galaxy through earth's StarGate, they soon realized that this second race, bent on enslaving them, had to be stopped at all costs. That was when America began to research and discover the power of the Ancients.

The Ascended The Ancients who stayed behind in our galaxy long ago evolved to such an incredible degree that they "Ascended," meaning they shed their physical bodies to become one with the universe's energies. Thus, they also gained incredible power. Whenever a powerful, diaphanous, ghostly Ascended Ancient appears, shrouded in white robes, the space-African warriors can only flee, because they're afraid of ghosts and can't stand up to the power of proud Ancients. And no, we're not kidding about any of this. This was all actual plot of the show. Anyway, having learned all this, America ensures its safety by modeling itself after the Ancients and discovering everything they can about the proud Ancient culture. Armed with Ancient knowledge and devices, America has been safe from the space-African god warriors ever since. But that's not to say danger still isn't out there...

Our primer continues with StarGate Atlantis. Click here to continue to Page 2 of the Primer.