Erebus
Summary
Erebus was a planet that was home to a Goa'uld ship building facility and mine/prison world where prisoner of war Jaffa mined naquadah.
Factoids
- Names and Designations: Erebus
- Number of Suns: Unknown
- Number of Moons: Two
- Source of Address: Rebel Jaffa
- Introduced in Episode: 7.04 "Orpheus"
- Earth Cultural/Technological Equivalent: Jaffa encampment/prison
- Main Interest: Search and Rescue
- Influenced/Dominated by: Goa'uld, most recently Ba'al
- History of Stargate: Stargate is equipped with a force shield, similar to Earth's iris, that only those who have the right code can pass through.
Stargate Glyphs
Unknown
Mythological References
"Erebus is a place where condemned souls pass as soon as they die."–Daniel Jackson, "Orpheus"
Earlier legends had Erebus as a person, an embodiment of darkness and the son of Chaos. Later, it became known as a region below Earth, an earlier variation of hell or Hades, but not as deep as Tartarus, where the Titans were imprisoned by Zeus and other gods. (see bottom for citations)
Gallery
Geopolitical and Structural History
Erebus was a planet with intense volcanic activity and toxic fumes, orbited by two moons. The Goa'uld used Erebus as a prison and mining world. Jaffa prisoners of war who would not submit to following their new "god" were sent to the planet to purify the naquadah and construct new ha'tak mothership vessels. Human slaves could not be used because the heat and toxic gases of the furnaces and volcanic activity made them unable to withstand the heavy labor. The toxins were even too much for Goa'uld primtas and even the Jaffa prisoners eventually succumbed and died after laboring there for some time.
Because of the value as a ha'tak building location, Erebus was a valuable location. They guarded the Erebus Stargate with an impenetrable force field, much like the SGC uses the trinium iris on Earth. Only someone who submitted the correct code could go through the Stargate.
The downtrodden Jaffa prisoners were also considered prime targets for the Rebel Jaffa movement, always looking to recruit members to swell their ranks. Sometime during the year Daniel Jackson was an ascended being, Bra'tac was able to get the Erebus shield code and led a group of rebel Jaffa for that purpose. Unfortunately, while Bra'tac and his party, which included Teal'c's son Rya'c, were there, Ba'al gained control of Erebus, and the rebels themselves were taken prisoner. Unseen by all involved, the ascended Daniel Jackson witnessed their capture and Bra'tac's last defiant move of sending the force field's deactivation code to the SGC's Alpha Site.
In the months that followed, Bra'tac and Rya'c were worked along with the other prisoners. Bra'tac stretched his tretonin supply as far as he could, but eventually he had little more and was succumbing to the heat and fumes of the planet. Anyone who could not work was ordered executed by the sadistic Jaffa that led the guards, an injured Jaffa who could not do battle. Rya'c tried to cover for Bra'tac so that the leader would not turn his sights on the Jaffa master. Bra'tac tried to buoy Rya'c's spirits with talk of rescue, but the youth did not believe his master.
Bra'tac's assurances were not however, in vain. In the months that followed Daniel Jackson's "decension" and regaining memories of his identity, he started to become haunted by dreams of Teal'c's son crying out in pain. He had a subconscious worry that he was forgetting something, eventually coalescing into concern Bra'tac and Rya'c were in danger. These specific memories from him being ascended returned, and with the help of Rak'nor, they were able to match Daniel's memories of the physical makeup of the planet to Erebus. Sam Carter was able to use this information to track an anomalous transmission to the Alpha Site, and they realized they had the code and ability to launch a rescue mission.
SG-1 and SG-3, along with Rak'nor were sent on the mission. Teal'c and Rak'nor snuck into the prisoner camp under darkness. They reached Bra'tac and Rya'c, getting fresh tretonin into the former. But neither Bra'tac nor Rya'c would leave without freeing all the prisoners in the camp. The delay ended up alerting the guards to Teal'c and Rak'nor's presence, and they were captured. Watching from the ridge above, O'Neill could only wait for daybreak before putting any other plan into action.
O'Neill's plan B involved Carter and Jackson infiltrating the partially built ship and sabotaging it to explode. The confusion would give O'Neill and SG-3 the distraction needed to raid the prisoner encampment and free Teal'c and the others. Although Teal'c did not know the specifics of the plan, he trusted his teammates would not abandon him and had Rya'c alert all the other prisoners to be ready for an uprising. Rya'c was caught by the head guard while passing the word and Teal'c offered himself to be punished instead of his son. The timing was close, but Daniel and Sam succeeded in setting off the explosion, destroying the gravity field holding the ha'tak in place. It crashed to the ground, panicking the guards and saving Teal'c and the other prisoners, who took the rescue into their own hands and fought their guards in hand to hand and with recovered staff weapons.
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Outside Sources
--Aurora 02:33, 28 February 2010 (UTC)