An alliance between the Four Great Races grew after the fifth race was added thousands of years after its formation.
The sci-fi series Stargate SG-1, a spinoff of the 1994 film Stargate, follows scientist Daniel Jackson, US Special Operations Colonel Jack O’Neill, Colonel Samantha Carter, and former First Prime to System Lord Apophis, Teal’c of Chulak, as they venture across the cosmos via the Stargate. The Stargate — first used in the 1994 film before being utilized throughout the Stargate SG-1 series — is a machine that was created thousands of years ago to act as a galactic wormhole that is used by the Stargate Command squad on Earth.
As is inevitable when traveling across the galaxy and galaxies separate from the one earth is most familiar with, the members of Stargate SG-1 encounter countless alien species. Of these many races, some were good and others, not so much. Some of those who were good, though, found it necessary to form an alliance against a common enemy: the Goa’uld.
After exploring throughout the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies, four races found themselves terrorized by the Goa’uld and decided to band together against them. This team would come to be known as the Alliance of Four Great Races. It was made up by the Ancients (formerly the Alterans), the Furlings, the Nox, and the Asgard. The fifth race wasn’t appointed until many, years later, after a certain amount of evolution of their species was achieved, and they proved themselves to be effective protectors of the galaxy. Who Are the Four Great Races?
The first members of the alliance are the Ancients. Once known as the Alterans, they lived as a developed civilization millions of years ago in the Alteran Home Galaxy in the form of humanoids, both in appearance and anatomy. At one point, their people split into two — the Alterans and the Ori — who differed in their beliefs and practices. The Alterans were science-oriented, and the Ori adapted a more religious lifestyle. This caused a civil war, forcing the Alterans to flee the galaxy to keep their people from being wiped out.
Thousands of years later, the Alterans found themselves in the Milky Way Galaxy as they settled on the planets Dakara and Terra — the latter which would eventually be known as Earth. As they began colonizing planets in the Milky Way, their most prominent presence was on Earth, and they left behind their knowledge and architecture.
