- "Pegasus."
"Yes, it's-it's the name of a dwarf galaxy in the local group." - — Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson
The Pegasus Galaxy is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, a part of the Local Group. It actually is formed of two dwarf galaxies, the Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy and the Pegasus Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. However, it is most likely that it is the former because when the Pegasus galaxy has been seen from the Midway station you see a galaxy that has an irregular shape. Also, in the discussion regarding the new McKay–Carter Intergalactic Gate Bridge, General Hank Landry states that the distance between the Pegasus and Milky Way galaxies is "three million light-years". Pegasus was the galaxy where the Ancients traveled to in the City-ship Atlantis after they abandoned the Milky Way. Much like in the Milky Way, they built a galaxy-spanning empire, but were forced to abandon it after most of the galaxy was conquered by the Wraith.
Similar to the Milky Way, the majority of the human cultures in the galaxy are at low levels of development due to constant attacks by the Wraith, with early to mid twentieth century Earth technology being rare. There are also several cultures whose technology rivals that of the Federation, usually hiding from the Wraith as to avoid destruction.
Pegasus was one of the first galaxies visited by the Ancient vessel Destiny.
History[]
Ancient's empire[]
- "...in the hope of spreading new life in a galaxy where there appeared to be none. Soon the new life grew, and prospered. Here, [...] we built a system of stargates, so that fledgling civilisations could travel between the stars, exchange knowledge and friendship. In time, a thousand worlds bore the fruit of life in this form."
- — Melia
A holographic representation of the Ancient-controlled Pegasus galaxy
Several million years ago, the Ancients were forced to abandon Earth and the Milky Way to escape an incurable plague. They left in the City-ship Atlantis from Antarctica and set a course for a new home, the Pegasus Galaxy, which the Destiny had previously passed through. When they arrived, they seeded the galaxy with human life, the same way they did in the Milky Way. They set up outposts on several worlds, including Athos, Doranda and Taranis, forged alliances and interacted with indigenous populations they created, studied the various worlds in the galaxy, and served as guardians to the humans they created.
For millions of years, the Lantean society flourished, and they created a new Stargate network to facilitate travel. However, things changed with the emergence of the Wraith. The Wraith evolved from the Iratus bug, a parasitic insect which fed on humans and incorporated aspects of their DNA into its genetic make-up. Though at first the Wraith were of no threat to the Lantean fleet, the Lanteans grew careless and allowed several of their ships to be captured. The Zero Point Modules powering those ships were used by the Wraith to power a cloning facility, and their forces increased a thousandfold. Pressing down on the Lanteans with sheer numbers, the Lanteans were forced on the defensive.
The Wraith fleet eventually conquered most of the galaxy, until Lantea was all that remained. For a hundred years, Lanteans defeated everything the Wraith threw at the planet, but still the Wraith would not give up, and continued sending endless waves of their forces at Lantea to try and break through. With nothing else to do, the Lanteans decided to submerge Atlantis and flee back to Earth, hoping that one day their kind would return.
A holographic representation of the Wraith takeover
With the Lanteans gone, the Wraith took complete control of the galaxy. Not long after, the Asurans, created by the Ancients to combat the Wraith, mounted their own assault. The Wraith devised a means to shut down their attack directive, thereby causing the Asurans to retreat to their homeworld. All the races who were technologically advanced were either wiped out, forced to abandon their advanced technology, or go into hiding. Over the next 10,000 years, the Wraith would remain in stasis, only occasionally waking to cull the human populations of the galaxy for sustenance.
Arrival of the Atlantis Expedition[]
- "What we're looking for may be further away than we ever imagined, but it's not out of reach."
- — Daniel Jackson
In 2379, Dr. Daniel Jackson found the gate address to the Pegasus galaxy at the Ancient outpost in Antarctica. The Federation sent the Atlantis expedition to the Pegasus Galaxy, where they build Starbase Atlantis with the help of construction ships and there was no means to gate back to Earth. The expedition took up residence in the completed starbase.
During an attempt to discover new Zero Point Modules, the expedition came in contact with the Wraith, accidentally interrupting their hibernation cycle prematurely. One by one, the Wraith began to awaken, again feeding on the human worlds. However, having awoken prematurely, the Wraith found themselves in a galaxy that had not had sufficient time to recover from their last major culling, and as a result the human population was insufficient to sustain their numbers. They were forced to locate a new source of food, which they found in Earth, having learned of it from the expedition members they captured during their first meeting. Though they knew of its existence, they did not know of its location, and so the only means they had to reach it was through Atlantis.
The expedition explored the galaxy for the hopes of searching for ZPMs to dial Earth and protect the starbase, formed alliances with other races for trade, and even struck back at the Wraith. They also went to war with the Asurans, who were eventually destroyed in the Battle of Asuras. An attempt to "cure" Wraith by suppressing the Iratus characteristics in their DNA gave rise to Michael Kenmore, a Human-Wraith Hybrid who quickly became a threat to both the Wraith and humans, as neither side would accept him. Michael was eventually killed during an invasion of Atlantis. They also dealt with a rogue group of Asgard known as the Vanir, who activated the Attero device with the intention of destroying the weakened Wraith. This act, however, had the side effect of causing a number of Stargates to accumulate excess power and explode bringing about the death of thousands. The device was destroyed, but some of the Vanir escaped.
In 2385, a Super-hive enhanced with Zero Point Modules mounted an attack on Earth. With its new power source, it was invincible in battle, and very nearly succeeded in its mission. The Atlantis expedition and Earth pooled all their resources to combat it. The Hive was ultimately destroyed from within using a quantum torpedo.
Although the International Oversight Advisory were initially in favor of keeping the Atlantis expedition on Earth, Lt. General Jack O'Neill was able to arrange for him to be placed in official command of the Atlantis expedition so that he could order it to return to Pegasus after a six-month absence. Seven days into a nine day journey back to Pegasus, the USS Polaris was traveling in the Jumpgate when the gate developed a malfunction due to a problem and the Polaris ended up in the intergalactic void between the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies, stranded in space until the gate could be repaired. Once the gate was repaired the Polaris re-entered the gate and continued on to the Pegasus galaxy. They arrived several hours later and set a course to Starbase 290 but otherwise back where they began. The expedition also discovered a new Wraith Queen had risen to power in their absence, Queen Death and posed a very great threat to the galaxy.
However, the Expedition suffered a huge loss when Dr. Rodney McKay, the chief science officer for the Expedition and also a member of the Atlantis Reconnaissance 1 was captured during a raid on a planet. McKay was later given a sample of the retrovirus which resulted in him being transformed into a Wraith called "Quicksilver". This also caused him to suffer memory loss and believe that he had always served Death, a Wraith Queen.
Death's Wraith alliance united all the warring Wraith fractions into one single alliance, all under Death's own control. After Guide left his Alliance, the remaining members sided with Death.
In the aftermath of Death's defeat and subsequent death, the remaining Wraith forged a peace treaty and as such, half of the Pegasus Galaxy was relinquished to the Federation.
Following the peace between the Federation and the Wraith, Doctor Elizabeth Weir returned, amnesic after having been returned to human form after an Ascension. Her return draws the attention of the Vanir who hope to use Weir to find an Ascended Asgard named Ran and force her to return to mortal form so they can use her genetic material in hopes of saving their race. This brings them into conflict with the Atlantis expedition once more and problems arise when the Wraith demand the Tau'ri deal with a human who is hunting them known as Wolf. The Tau'ri learn that Wolf is in fact missing Atlantis team member Lieutenant Aiden Ford and they strike a deal with the Wraith for Ford to return to Earth instead of being killed. They also convince Vanir leader Dis to communicate with Ran and ask for her help rather than force it. Taking Dis to Earth, the Vanir leader is able to communicate with Ran who agrees to help and returns to mortal form. The Vanir depart, promising to cause no more trouble to the Pegasus Galaxy and begin working on saving their race.
Characteristics of the galaxy[]
Unlike in the Milky Way, the populations of the Pegasus Galaxy are not as much intimidated by the existence of the Stargate; in fact, they use the Stargate as a means of interplanetary travel and trade. They do not consider people traveling through the gate as superior, as opposed to the majority of races in the Milky Way (with the exception of cultures such as the Tollan, Langaran, and Sodan), who considered gate-traveling races much superior if not, beings of great power or rather, Gods.
This may be due to the fact that, while Goa'ulds saw gate-traveling as one aspect that made them superior to the rest of the Galaxy's human population, the Wraith were slumbering most of the time, preferred space travel, and did not restrict the use of the Stargate.
Also unlike the Milky Way, the human populations of the galaxy never reach high populations as they are culled or destroyed by the Wraith. According to a hologram of Melia, a thousand worlds had human life before the Wraith began their war with the Lanteans and in 2385 after the Asuran-Federation-Wraith war and because of Michael Kenmore's dissemination of the Hoffan drug as well as his attempts to take over the Pegasus Galaxy, over two million humans had died, with several worlds also being completely and utterly wiped out.
Following the death of Queen Death, the Wraith established a deal where half of the galaxy is given over to the human populations and will be free from Wraith attack. Among these planets are New Athos and Sateda and Sateda at least begins rebuilding and establishing a new government after having been destroyed by the Wraith years earlier.
Races native to the galaxy[]
- Asurans
- Crystal of M3X-387
- Energy being of M5S-224
- Humans
- Athosian
- Balarian
- Belkan
- Bola Kai
- Celise's people
- Daganian
- Dorandan
- Elson's people
- Free Peoples of Riva
- Geldaran
- Genii
- Harmony's people
- Hallonan
- Hoffan
- Human-form Wraith
- Jamus' people
- Kiryk's people
- Keturah's people
- Latiran
- Lord Protector's people
- Lucius' people
- Manarian
- Mirellus' people
- Orin's people
- Olesian
- People of 477
- People of Edowin
- People of Jenev
- People of M1K-177
- People of M1R-992
- People of M2R-441
- People of M2S-181
- People of M33-985
- People of M5S-768
- People of M5V-801
- People of M65-PL8
- People of M72-656
- People of M7G-677
- People of Paradise world
- People of Proculus
- People of the Cloister
- Phoebus' people
- Satedan
- Sion
- Sudarian
- Taranian
- Thalan's people
- Thenoran
- Traveler
- Tribes of Santhal
- Unnamed race (Be All My Sins Remember'd)
- Unnamed race (Identity)
- Unnamed race (Inquisition)
- Unnamed race (Reunion)
- Unnamed race (Suspicion)
- Unnamed race (The Gift)
- Unnamed race (The Kindred, Part 2)
- Unnamed race (The Lost Boys)
- Unnamed race (Tracker)
- Vedeenan
- Zaddik's people
- Iratus bug
- Wraith
- Bug People
- Hybrid
- Michael's experiment
- Pigeons
- Sekkari
- Shadow creature
- Unnamed race (Tracker)
Known planets in Pegasus[]
Notes[]
There are actually two galaxies in the Local Group named Pegasus: Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy and Pegasus Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. In "The Return, Part 1", Major General Henry Landry states that Pegasus is three million light years from the Milky Way, implying that the Pegasus seen in Stargate: Atlantis is the Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy. Also, the graphics used for the McKay/Carter Intergalactic Gate Bridge all show the Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy.