Ori / HATO

Millions of years ago in a very distant galaxy, a group of humans were on the evolutionary path toward ascension, the shedding of the physical body to live as a form of energy on a higher plane of existence as Ascended Beings. One part of this group was known as the Altera, and they lived in a mountaintop village. They appeared to be a simple people, but underground, they conducted scientific investigations in secret. They were fearful of their brethren, the Ori, the followers of a philosophy called “Origin”, who didn’t support their scientific views. Tension between the two groups grew as the philosophical gap widened between them, until the Ori began to amass armies to strike down the Altera. Instead of engaging in a war, the Altera fled in a single starship that burst forth from their mountaintop home. The Ori felt that the Altera’s flight was a great victory over “evil”, but even so, their hatred of the Altera continued to grow.

The Altera traveled for thousands of years and then found the Milky Way. They called their new home “Avalon” and built a Stargate network. Five to ten million years ago, these Ancients’ existence was threatened by a plague that swept through the galaxy. Some of the Ancients left the Milky Way in the city-ship “Atlantis” where they found a new home in the Pegasus Galaxy. Some of them learned to ascend. Those who remained and could not ascend died of the plague. After this galactic devastation, there was a group of Ancients who used the advanced weapon on Dakara to reseed the galaxy with life, thus creating the second evolution of humanity.

The Ori eventually ascended as well, and they, too, created another evolution of humanity in their home galaxy. The Altera who ascended joined a collective called The Others, while the Ori joined in a collective in opposition to them. Whereas The Others established rules of non-interference concerning the “lowers”, those in the corporeal plane of existence, the Ori promised to show their humanity the Path to Enlightenment toward ascension as long as they worshipped them as their gods and creators through their religion, called “Origin”, which was laid out in The Book of Origin. The reason for these polar positions is that an Ascended Being is actually able to gain more power in the ascended planes of existence through the surrender of a human’s free will. The more worshippers the Ori obtained, the more powerful they became. Any humans who refused the Ori were destroyed. Those who surrendered their free will to the Ori did not obtain ascension that was promised in Origin because the Ori did not intend to share their power. Not wanting to be corrupted in the same manner, The Others established their non-interference policy with strict rules that were meant to prevent any of their own from attempting to gain power through such destructive means.

The Others knew of the Ori and their ways and thus decided to hide the existence of the second evolution of humans in the Milky Way. For millions of years, the Ori did not know that the Alteran Ancients had created life in their new home galaxy.

Upon discovering what was left of Avalon on Earth and that it was linked to the Alteran Ancients, Daniel Jackson hypothesized the possibly of there being an advanced civilization of Ancients living as humans in their home galaxy. He thought that some of the Ancients who left the Pegasus Galaxy 10,000 years ago might have returned home to that galaxy far, far away. After determining that a piece of Ancient technology found among the treasures of Avalon in the Glastonbury Tor was an intergalactic communications device, Daniel asked that he attempt contact to see if there might still exist an Ancient civilization that would share their knowledge and technology.

Unfortunately, Daniel’s use of the communications device brought the existence of humanity in the Milky Way to the Ori’s attention. In order to gain more power, the Ori decided to spread their doctrine to the “unbelievers” in this “far off place”. It was the dawn of a new age for the Ori. They dispatched their missionaries, called Priors, through the Stargates and built spaceships with highly-trained militia to lead a crusade in the Milky Way.