ANUBIS: A powerful Goa’uld conqueror, perhaps the most powerful in the long history of the System
Lords. Anubis was gone for a thousand years, and his enemies believed him to be dead. But when he
returned, he showed himself to be a formidable force – now wielding the power of the Ancients
themselves, and bent on conquering the galaxy. Living for thousands of years, Anubis was a
cunning and ambitious Goa’uld. He took his name from the ancient Egyptian god of the underworld,
usually depicted with the head of a wolf or jackal. Anubis rose to the rank of System Lord,
sitting among the ranks of the Goa’uld’s most powerful elite. Eventually he also went to
war with many of them – in particular Lord Yu, with whom his rivalry was particularly bitter.
Anubis perpetrated crimes that were unspeakable, even by Goa’uld standards.
He was banished by the System Lords, who judged that he should never be allowed to return to them.
Yu even attempted to have his enemy murdered. Anubis sought a power far beyond what normal
conquest would bring him. He turned to the old Jaffa legend of Kheb, a planet where the Jaffa
believed they could one day learn to walk the path to the next life. Kheb was kept secret from
the Goa’uld, who came to fear and despise it – eventually forbidding the Jaffa from speaking
of it, as it represented a future where the Jaffa might one day be free of enslavement.
But Anubis instead sought out Kheb, and here he found the powerful ascended being Oma Desala.
Ostracized by the Ancients millennia ago, Oma helped lower beings ascend to a higher
plane of existence. But this required personal enlightenment, courage, and purity of spirit.
Anubis fooled her, playing the role of an open and honest seeker of higher wisdom.
Evidently he had been studying the Ancients’ research on ascension,
and knew what he was doing. And so she helped him to ascend, giving Anubis access to the
Ancients and their knowledge of the universe. But now Anubis’ true heart was fully revealed:
he coveted the power of the Ancients, and desired not to seek enlightenment but to rule the galaxy.
The Ancients used their collective power to try and force Anubis to descend,
robbing him of his immortality and returning him to a body of flesh and blood.
But because he was now equal to them in power, their efforts were only partially effective.
Anubis now existed between worlds, no longer fully ascended but also not corporeal. Rather
than a serpent occupying the body of a human host, Anubis was an immaterial
being whose essence was contained in a mysterious visage as dark as space itself.
As a result of his experience with ascension, Anubis was absent from the
lower planes for a thousand years. Yu and the other System Lords believed him to have died,
and seized his armies and his territory. The legends of his ruthless cunning grew,
and even in his absence the visage of Anubis inspired terror. Centuries after
his disappearance, one of Ra’s highest-ranking Jaffa even assumed Anubis' persona – both the name
and the jackal-headed armor. Anubis himself now planned to return
and reassert his newfound power amongst the System Lords. He moved slowly at first,
recruiting lesser Goa’uld as his allies and agents, and searching the galaxy for various
advanced technologies that the Ancients had left behind when they ascended millennia ago.
His knowledge of Ancient technology, where to find it, and how to use
it would make him a formidable power. After quietly learning about the state of
the galaxy, including the System Lords and their various enemies, Anubis finally revealed himself
to his former allies. He sent Osiris to represent his interests at a summit in the Hasara system.
Anubis demanded to be readmitted to the ranks of the System Lords – outraging the
oldest among them, Lord Yu, who remembered first-hand his old enemy’s atrocities.
To prove his new power, Anubis could cite the recent destruction of the Tollan. They were so
advanced in their technology that the Goa’uld were forced to steer clear of their homeworld, lest a
mothership be taken out by one of the powerful ion cannons that guarded the planet. But Anubis
had sent a ship to Tollana, under the command of Tanith, equipped with new shields engineered
from Anubis’ knowledge of the Ancients. Tanith quickly turned the tables on the Tollan,
and forced them to capitulate. Soon after, their once powerful civilization had been annihilated.
Anubis also offered to the System Lords the destruction of the Tok’ra – a resistance
movement that had been a thorn in their side for millennia. Anubis had found the Tok’ra hideout
beneath the surface of Revanna, and even now had dispatched Lord Zipacna to destroy them.
So too, he promised to defy the Asgard Protected Planets Treaty and destroy the Tau’ri of Earth,
putting an asteroid on course to impact the planet so that the Goa’uld
could deny any knowledge or blame. Some months later, Anubis even proved
that his new shields and weapons finally made the Goa’uld a match for the Asgard.
Unable to deny Anubis’ power and his successes, the System Lords voted to
readmit him to their ranks. The vote was nearly unanimous, with only Yu remaining opposed.
But Anubis’ alliance with the System Lords was short-lived. After Anubis failed twice
to destroy Earth, Yu rallied the other System Lords to turn against him once again.
But when they surrounded his ship in orbit of the planet Abydos, Anubis unveiled his newest
weapon. Powered by the Eye of Ra and five other ancient crystals, the weapon decimated
the combined fleet of the System Lords. Even the ascended being Daniel Jackson was
unable to stop him – prevented from interfering by Oma and the others.
Anubis was now a seemingly unstoppable power. Yu survived the attack, and persisted
in his futile opposition. Meanwhile Anubis used Ancient
reanimation technology to create a new army – the monstrous Kull warriors, stronger than the Jaffa
and possessed by loyal Goa’uld symbiotes. He used them to take out various minor Goa’uld,
in order to absorb their armies. Anubis now turned his sights back to Earth,
as one of the last bastions of opposition to his control of the Milky Way.
When he learned that an unascended Daniel Jackson was helping the Tau’ri to locate
their own advanced technologies of the Ancients, Anubis launched an all-out attack on Earth.
As a battle raged over Antarctica and in orbit, SG-1 located an Ancient outpost
beneath the surface of the ice. There Jack O’Neill activated dormant drone weapons,
which destroyed Anubis’ fleet. Anubis was believed to have been destroyed,
and now the System Lord Baal moved to take control of his forces.
A new alliance of the System Lords united against him, and the battle lines were drawn once again.
But Anubis, a half-ascended being without a corporeal body, had not been destroyed.
Now appearing as a dark and disembodied cloud, Anubis took possession of the body of a Russian
cosmonaut and made his way to Earth’s surface. He found that he could move from one body to another,
using it as a host – but only for a short time, as this form
of possession wore out a human body very rapidly. Anubis used subterfuge to make his way to Stargate
Command, and escaped through the Stargate. Though he was temporarily trapped on an ice planet, he
eventually returned to power and retook control of his armies – subjugating Baal now to serve him.
Because he was half-ascended, Anubis proved exceptionally difficult to eliminate for good.
He even took time to visit Oma Desala, taunting her in front of the Ancients
for her inability to stop him. His forces moved to seize control
of the planet Dakara, where he planned to use an Ancient device to wipe out all life in the
galaxy – remaking everything as he saw fit. With the others unwilling to act,
and the mortal beings unable to stop him, Oma Desala finally sacrificed her own eternity.
She engaged Anubis in an unending battle on the higher plane, knowing that neither of
them would ever be able to defeat the other. But as long as she kept him occupied Anubis would be
forced to defend himself for all eternity, and so unable to act any further on the mortal plane.
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