Daniel Jackson
Dr. Daniel Jackson is an only child and an
orphan. His maternal grandfather and only living relative,
Nick Ballard, is currently living on another planet with giant aliens ("
Crystal Skull"). Daniel's parents, Melbourne and Claire Jackson, also archaeologists, were crushed while overseeing a piece of Egyptian art being placed in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York ("
The Gamekeeper"). This caused Daniel much grief during his life.
Daniel is a brilliant
archaeologist and
linguist who speaks more than twenty-three
languages ("
1969"); the ones seen on screen are
Ancient Egyptian,
Russian,
Mandarin Chinese and
German, as well as
Goa'uld,
Ancient, and
Unas (which he decoded). In the film "
Stargate", he uses his knowledge of
ancient Egypt to open a device called the
Stargate by interpreting the cover-stones found with it. On the original mission through the Stargate to the planet
Abydos, Daniel meets and falls in love with a native woman,
Sha'uri (she is named
Sha're in the TV series
Stargate SG-1).
They accidentally marry as a result of miscommunication, but after winning the battle to free the Abydonians from the
System Lord Ra, Daniel decides not to return to Earth with the rest of the team. He has finally found a family and wants to live the rest of his life learning about the culture and history of Abydos with its insights into ancient Egypt.
Daniel's life changes course once again for the Stargate series, "Stargate SG-1" when his wife is abducted. Daniel joins a team, designated SG-1, with the personal goal of recovering her, but circumstances eventually change. His wife dies, but Daniel stays onboard the team with a brief interruption caused by his ascension.
During his many adventures with
SG-1, Daniel has been captured, infected with alien viruses, had 12 alien consciousness implanted within his brain, killed and brought back to life multiple times, been inside a sarcophagus (which has healing powers) many times and experienced its withdrawal symptoms. He also succumbed to appendicitis as well as being kidnapped once. (The actor, Michael Shanks, suffered
appendicitis around the time "
Nemesis" was being filmed and was in no condition for any serious work, so the writers had to quickly reduce Jackson's role in the episode, and used Shanks' real-life condition.)
His contributions have also been recognised by the
Asgard: the
Daniel Jackson, the flagship of
Thor, the Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet, was named in his honor.
Specific season spoilers follow:
A year after the initial mission to Abydos, Sha're is kidnapped by
Apophis and she is made host to the
Goa'uld symbiote Amonet, Apophis' wife. Daniel returns to Earth and joins SG-1 in the hope that his missions through the Stargate will help him find his beloved wife.
During these missions, Daniel serves the role of an interpreter when speaking to alien people. He learns languages quickly and has a wealth of knowledge on ancient cultures. Among a team of military officers, Daniel is often the voice of understanding and acceptance of different cultures. He is an optimist and believes in helping people even if it endangers his own life.
He also played a vital role in thwarting a Goa'uld invasion of Earth. During a mission ("
There But For the Grace of God"), Daniel was transported to an alternate reality where he was never part of the SGC,
Teal'c had never defected, and Earth was being attacked by a Goa'uld fleet. During his time, Daniel was able to work out the Stargate address that the invasion had originated from, and convinced the Jack O'Neill of that reality to let him return to his world to provide advance warning of the invasion.
Sha're/Amonet gives birth to the
Harcesis child
Shifu in the episode "
Secrets". Daniel Jackson considers himself somewhat a stepfather to the boy.
He was also briefly transferred into the body of a dying old man called Ma'chello, a long-time opponent of the Goa'uld. Initially, Machello was prepared to regard Daniel as a casuality of war, as he knew of no way to reverse the process, but
Samantha Carter eventually restored them to their rightful bodies by causing Teal'c and Jack to switch bodies and subsequently 'shuffling' the minds until they returned to their rightful bodies. ("
Holiday")
Sha're dies in the episode "
Forever in a Day", when Teal'c is forced to kill her to stop Amonet from killing Daniel.
During a mission to a planet where the population had mass amnesia ("
Past and Present"), Daniel developed feelings for a woman called Ke'ra, before they learned that she was originally
Linea, the 'Destroyer of Worlds'. The SGC were forced to prevent her taking the drug that would restore her memories, and Ke'ra returned to her adopted people, changed from what she had once been.
Daniel journeys to a planet called
Kheb to search for the Harcesis. He discovers the child is being cared for by
Oma Desala, a being of great power and wisdom, and accepts her custody in the episode "
Maternal Instinct".
In the episode "
Crystal Skull", Daniel was reunited with his grandfather when exposure to a crystal skull on an alien world turned him invisible and intangible. His grandfather was called in due to his experience with a similar artifact, and was able to bring Daniel back into sync with reality, before deciding to remain on the planet.
During a mission to the planet that is believed to have been the original homeworld of the Goa'uld in the episode "
The First Ones", Daniel was captured by a young
Unas as part of a ritual that would allow the Unas to pass into adulthood. However, the two of them developed a certain friendship, and Daniel was eventually released.
In the episode "
The Curse", the death of Daniel's old professor and mentor led to an awkward reunion with his ex-girlfriend, Sarah Gardner. This also led to the discovery that his professor had acquired a Goa'uld artefact containing the dormant Goa'uld
Osiris, who went on to possess Sarah despite the best efforts of Sam and Daniel.
Shifu returns, much older, to teach Daniel the dangers of having the full knowledge of the Goa'uld in the episode "
Absolute Power", by showing him a vision of what he would become if he used the Goa'uld knowledge. In this vision, Daniel, overcome by the evil nature of the Goa'uld knowledge, had Sam locked away for questioning his authority, destroyed Moscow for questioning him, and was apparently responsible for Teal'c's death (He may also have killed Jack when Jack tried to stop him going too far, but the vision ended at this point).
Being able to fluently speak Goa'uld, Daniel is assigned to infiltrate the System Lord summit as Yu's Lo'tar Jariol and release the symbiont poison on them. However, he is secretly confronted by Osiris. He stabs her with a Re'ol memory altering device so she'd forget about him. As he is about to release the poison, he hears that Anubis wants to rejoin the System Lords. He then plans to capture Osiris and leave, but his plan is interrupted by Yu, who found out from Ba'al's Lo'tar that Daniel, aka Jariol, is not to be trusted. Daniel escapes without Osiris and without releasing the poison.
|
Daniel Jackson in "Meridian" |
In the episode "
Meridian", Daniel Jackson dies due to radiation over-exposure he suffered while disabling an unstable
naqahdriah reactor; any attempts to cure him with Goa'uld healing devices initially failed, and any later attempts would have left Daniel in a crippled body. However, Jackson does not perish completely; instead, he
Ascends to a higher plane of existence, guided by the
Ancient Oma Desala.
While Ascended, Jackson's role on SG-1 is filled by
Jonas Quinn, a native of the planet that Daniel gave his life to help, although the rest of the team (Particularly Carter) find it hard to get over Daniel's absence, and Jack never really accepts Quinn's presence on his team.
As an Ascended being, Daniel visits SG-1 on occasion, but with minimal interference due to the rules of the Ascended. In the episode , he offers Col. Jack O'Neill ascension in an effort to escape Ba'al's torture, but O'Neill declines.
In , Daniel helps a delusional and critically injured Teal'c to regain his grasp on reality after he was fatally injured, forced to share a symbiote with
Bra'tac due to the lack of another, by playing the role of a psychologist in the delusion.
In the season 6 finale , Daniel seeks to defeat the plans of
Anubis by having SG-1 locate a device called "The Eye of Ra" located on Abydos. Ultimately, the plan fails. Daniel attempts to make a deal with Anubis in an effort to safeguard the lives of the Abydonians and SG-1, but Anubis breaks his word. Daniel tries to destroy Anubis, only to be whisked away before he could do anything to him, and Abydos is destroyed, although Oma helps Daniel.
Eventually, Daniel is discovered on the planet Vis Uban, having returned to human form, in the Season 7 episode "
Fallen", having violated the rules and used his powers to interfere when he tried to save Abydos from Anubis. He initially has total amnesia, but he recoveries his memories of his corporal life fairly rapidly. He no longer remembers his time as an ascended being, but some memories are buried in his subconscious.
Daniel spends much of Season 7 trying to find the Lost City of the Ancients, which gives him the chance to rescue Sarah when Osiris tried to trick him into revealing the location of the city.("
Chimera"). More importantly in the large scale, leads to the discovery of the Ancient Outpost at Antarctica in the Season 7 finale "
Lost City".
During Season 8's "
Prometheus Unbound", Daniel has his first contact with
Vala Mal Doran when the latter seized the
Prometheus and Daniel was left on board.
Jackson dies again in the episode "
Reckoning (Part 2)", killed by
RepliCarter after she tried to acquire the knowledge left in his mind following his Ascension. In the process, however, Daniel was also able to use the link to shut down the Replicators long enough for them to be destroyed. In the next episode, "
Threads", it is shown that Oma Desala is once again providing a path for Daniel to Ascend. But events in the real world prevent him from continuing his journey, and during his decision-making, Anubis appears. Daniel eventually persuades Oma Desala into fighting Anubis (The two of them being equally matched, Anubis can never escape so long as Oma continues to fight), and Daniel is Descended back to Earth to live on as a human, this time with full memory of what just happened to him on the ascended plain of existence.
Vala later returns in "
Avalon", preventing Daniel from going on the
Daedalus to
Atlantis by virtually shackling him to her with
linking bracelets. She is searching for a lost Ancient treasure and wants Daniel to assist her. After finding the
Ancient chamber under
Glastonbury Tor,
England, Daniel discovers, by reading an Ancient book, that the Ancients called themselves the Alterans and came from another galaxy. He also discovers that the Ancients had a device for intergalactic communication. Still linked to Vala, they use the device to communicate, where they find themselves in the bodies of two people in another galaxy. There, they make contact with the
Ori and unintentionally bring that threat to the Milky Way.
In the season 10 episode "
The Shroud", Daniel will apparently be turned into a Prior of the Ori who uses a "soft sell" method of Origin and does not threaten to wipe out the people for not believing in the Ori as gods.
The show occasionally jokes about how many times Daniel has died, as in fact it occurs often. While other characters are frequently shot, infected and killed, the show seems to prod the audience with the idea of being without this particular character.
The Film*Killed by a staff blast defending O'Neil in the
Stargate motion picture. Resurrected by Ra with a
sarcophagus.
Season One*Presumed dead with the rest of the people of Abydos from the nuke left behind by O'Neil in the
Stargate motion picture (In "
Children of the Gods").
*Presumed dead by the brainwashed rest of SG-1 in "
Fire and Water".
*Killed by
Apophis and resurrected by the
Nox in "
The Nox".
*Supposes his other self to be dead in an alternate universe in "
There But For the Grace of God" although in fairness, everyone dies in this episode
except Daniel.
Season Two*Hit by a staff blast and apparently mortally wounded, remains behind on Apophis' doomed ship to use the sarcophagus and escapes via Stargate before the ship is destroyed in "
The Serpent's Lair". Presumed dead by the rest of SG-1.
*Briefly died of old age while in the body of Ma'chello, an ancient enemy of the Goa'uld, in "
Holiday".
Season Three*In the opening of "
Rules of Engagement" he appears to die along with the rest of SG-1, but is only temporarily stunned.
*Carter shoots an alien resembling Daniel Jackson, the alien later dies. "
Foothold".
*SG-1 searches for Jackson while he follows them around in a non-corporeal state, suspecting that he has died and is a ghost in "
Crystal Skull".
Season Four*Suffers cardiac arrest after becoming addicted to a Goa'uld narcotic device. "
The Light"
*Is shot and killed with gate-defense lasers along with the rest of SG-1 in the alternate future of "
2010".
*Has 'his' head shot off by a staff weapon in "
Double Jeopardy", revealing that the SG-1 the episode had followed to that point is not the original, but rather the
android SG-1.
Season Five*Dies of radiation poisoning after psychically asking O'Neill to make the doctors and Jacob Carter stop trying to save him in "
Meridian", thus Ascending to a higher plane until season seven.
Season Eight*Killed by
Teal'c in a
virtual reality system from
P7J-989 during "
Avatar", as he had previously been a Goa'uld spy inside the virtual reality. If he did not gain the trust of
Teal'c inside the game, they would both eventually die.
*Killed by
RepliCarter at the very end of "
Reckoning" and is seen at midway point between Ascension and mortality before finally being brought back to life in "
Threads".
*A
Goa'uld-possessed alternate timeline version of Daniel is shot by
Teal'c in "
Moebius". The timeline is restored by the end of the episode and Daniel is alive with all of SG-1. (In another timeline in the same episode, all of SG-1 are killed
except Daniel when attempting a revolution in the past; that timeline's Daniel apparently lives out his life in ancient Egypt, along with the alternate SG-1 whose Daniel was infected by a Goa'uld, and would have eventually died as well.)
Season Ten*In the
opening episode it is revealed that the Korolev (the ship that Daniel was on) was the
Daedalus-class ship that had been destroyed in the
season 9 finale. As Daniel hadn't been able to evacuate via Asgard beaming technology or by F-302, he had been presumed dead. Later on, the SG-1 team discovers that the ring transporter was used by Daniel to escape to an Ori ship, moments before the destruction of the Korolev.
