Jack O'Neill (Stargate)

Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill is a fictional character in both the science fiction feature film Stargate and the subsequent television series Stargate SG-1 played by actors Kurt Russell in the former and Richard Dean Anderson in the latter.

Events in the series

While visiting the planet Argos, O'Neill had a short relationship with a young native woman and became infected with nanites that caused rapidly increased aging, turning him to the equivalent of one hundred years old in a matter of weeks. It turned out that the entire population suffered this, and they were purged of the nanites with help from Captain Carter and Doctor Fraiser.

Related Topics:
Argos - Nanites

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Jack's life was turned upside-down when the Repository of the Ancients (builders of the Stargates) was accidentally downloaded into his brain. He slowly lost the ability to speak, write, and even comprehend English. He entered hundreds of new gate addresses into the dialing computer that were not on the Abydos Cartouche, formulated a new system for calculating distances based on gate addresses, and translated Ancient text for Daniel Jackson. He finally built a device that produced enough power to allow the Stargate to dial Othala, a planet in the galaxy of Ida and home to a colony of Asgard, using an eight-chevron address. The Asgard there were able to remove the knowledge from O'Neill's mind and return him to normal. First contact (in modern times) with the Asgard provided O'Neill and his team with new allies, Earth with the protection of a people that even the Goa'uld feared, and humanity with the chance to someday become the Asgard's equals: 'The Fifth Race.'

Related Topics:
Repository of the Ancients - Othala - Asgard

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O'Neill was stranded on one planet for a considerable period of time when a meteor hit the local Stargate. Although he believed it destroyed, he continued for months to search for a means of uncovering its pieces. Eventually, he gave up all hope of returning home, and began to build a relationship with a local woman. In fact, the gate was still whole, but had been buried under literally tons of earth, creating a "natural iris." SG-1 found a way to disintegrate this barrier with the unstable vortex the gate created when opening, and eventually rescued O'Neill.

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Over several years, O'Neill fought a personal war with Colonel Harry Maybourne of the NID, a government organization dedicated to the examination and application of technologies retrieved by the SGC, and later leader of a rogue group of NID agents. The relationship between them improved as Maybourne helped expose corrupt NID agents, threaten the corrupt Senator Robert Kinsey, and save Carter from Adrian Conrad. Jack and Mayborne were trapped on a planet with only each other for company, Maybourne became paranoid from a toxin in a local plant, and both were eventually saved by the rest of SG-1 and a Tok'ra scoutship. Jack partially reconciled with Maybourne and offered to help him retire to a peaceful planet somewhere.

Related Topics:
Harry Maybourne - NID - Robert Kinsey - Adrian Conrad

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Jack was again forced to download the Ancients' knowledge into his mind in order to protect Earth from attack by the Goa'uld Anubis. He led SG-1 by Goa'uld Cargo Ship to a planet where an Ancient outpost stood in ruins, and showed SG-1 the location of the Lost City they had been searching for. He removed the power device from the outpost and SG-1 returned to Earth to find a fleet of Anubis's starships ready to attack the planet's surface. They flew to Antarctica to find an identical outpost where Jack, using a control chair, launched Ancient Drone Weapons that devastated the fleet, destroying Anubis' host body (though not killing him outright as Anubis is/was half ascended/decended, although he was finally stopped by Oma Desala in SG-1 episode 8.18 "Threads"). Jack finally put himself into stasis in the Ancient outpost to save his own life. His ability to operate the Ancient chair technology means that O'Neill posseses the ATA gene, seemingly in a pretty powerful form. This is later confirmed in the episode "It's Good to Be King".

Related Topics:
Anubis - Oma Desala - Threads - ATA gene - It's Good to Be King

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SG-1 attempted to contact the Asgard, only to find that the humanoid replicators had escaped and were again threatening the Asgard. Thor returned with SG-1 to Earth and removed the knowledge from O'Neill's brain, but not before he designed a weapon to destroy a replicator instantly by severing the communication between their blocks.

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O'Neill was promoted to Brigadier General and put in command of the SGC after Hammond was promoted to Lieutenant General. He faced new threats: Baal took over Anubis's power vacuum and nearly defeated the System Lords, the replicators returned, and Anubis was found to be still alive. He continues to try to adjust to life on the quiet side of the gate room glass, envying his former teammates' journeys and joining them when he can; the SG-1 episode 8.13 "It's Good to Be King" was the only time after his promotion that he went off-world.

Related Topics:
Baal - It's Good to Be King

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Throughout the series, O'Neill's relationship with Samantha Carter has been subjected to a great deal of interest and speculation. On two separate occasions, either O'Neill or a member of his team came into contact with two alternate realities in which O'Neill and Carter were either engaged or married. In the fourth season episode Divide and Conquer, both O'Neill and Carter had to officially admit that their feelings for one another were more than professional. There are several events and incidents spread throughout the series that imply that the feelings they have for one another remain a subtle constant in their lives, despite various outside influences, such as Carter's temporary fiancé, Pete Shanahan, and O'Neill's brief relationship with Kerry Johnson, an officer of the CIA, as well as their relationships with offworlders, particularly (in Carter's case), Narim and Martouf.

Related Topics:
Samantha Carter - Narim - Martouf

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