Daniel Jackson
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Daniel Jackson is a fictional character in both the science fiction feature film Stargate and the subsequent television series Stargate SG-1. The role was played by James Spader in the film version and is played by Michael Shanks in the TV series.
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.
Stargate SG-1
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:
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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.
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Sha're/Amonent 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 Sam 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")
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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.
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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).
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In the episode "Meridian", Daniel Jackson dies due to radiation over-exposure he suffered while disabling an unstable naqahdriah reactor. However, Jackson does not perish completely; instead, he Ascends to a higher plane of existence, guided by the Ancient Oma Desala.
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While Ascended, Jackson's role on SG-1 is filled by Jonas Quinn, however he later returns 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 spends much of Season 7 trying to find the Lost City of the Ancients, which leads them to finding the Ancient Outpost at Antarctica in the Season 7 finale "Lost City".
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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; however, he is 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, and Daniel is Descended back to Earth, to live on as a human.
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Vala later returns in "Avalon", preventing him 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.
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In the season 10 episode "The Shroud", Daniel is 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.
Non- and semi-permanent deaths
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.
- 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.
- 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".
- Briefly died of old age while in the body of Ma'chello, an ancient enemy of the Goa'uld, in "Holiday".
- 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".
- 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.
- Is dying of radiation poisoning and psychically asks 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.
- 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.)
- 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.
Trivia
It is interesting to note that, despite the constant hints at a Carter/O'Neill relationship, some fans also favor Samantha Carter becoming romantically involved with Daniel, due to them being more intellectually equal than Carter and O'Neill, as well as them having more in common with each other. Although not as common as hints to a Carter/O'Neill relationship, there have been suggestions of a Carter/Daniel one.Two particularly prominent examples of hints at a romantic link between the two occur in "Meridian", when Carter told a dying Jackson "I don't know why we wait to tell people how we really feel. I guess I hoped that you always knew", suggesting that she does feel something for him beyond friendship, and after his return from ascension in "Fallen", when an amnesic Daniel quickly asked Carter if there had ever been something between them.
As far as the alternate reality argument goes- that she has been with O'Neill in every alternate reality encountered by the SGC- it should be noted that, in these realities, Daniel was either dead when Carter fell for O'Neill ("Moebius", although their kiss may just have been a simple need for contact brought on by fear of death) or had never been part of SGC in the first place ("There But For the Grace of God", "Point of View")
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