Praclarush Taonas
Summary
Praclarush Taonas was the planet on which Jack found the power source (ZPM) to transfer to the Antarctic Outpost in order to unleash the drones which destroyed Anubis's attacking fleet over Earth.
Factoids
- Names and Designations: Praclarush Taonas
- Number of Suns: 1 (red giant)
- Number of Moons: unknown
- Source of Address: Jack O'Neill from second Ancient download
- Introduced in Episode: 7.22 "Lost City Part 2"
- Earth Cultural/Technological Equivalent: none
- Main Interest: Ancient Outpost with working ZPM
- Influenced/Dominated by: Ancients over a million years ago
- History of Stargate: Stargate is buried in lava flow
Stargate Glyphs
Geopolitical Structure and History
The Ancients left behind technology in the Milky Way Galaxy thought to be at least 50 million years old. On several of their worlds, they also left defense outposts, all of which had a control chair which responded to someone with the Ancient gene. When Anubis sent a fleet of over 30 vessels to Earth in order to put a stop to the SGC's search for the Lost City of the Ancients, a place thought to have powerful weapons which would give the one who possessed them galactic domination, Jack O'Neill decided to take a second download from one of the Ancient Repositories of Knowledge on P3X-439 in order to use that knowledge to find the city. (6.04 "Frozen", 7.21 "Lost City Part 1")
Based on his experiences from a previous download (2.16 "The Fifth Race"), Jack knew that he'd be able to use the knowledge from the download to perform a certain task. He gambled that he'd be able to use it to find the Lost City of the Ancients. Not truly understanding why he was doing certain things, he began to pack all manner of equipment for his trip to Praclarush Taonas, the coordinates for which he placed into a crossword puzzle using the phonetic representation of the Stargate glyphs. Daniel translated "Praclarush Taonas" into Stargate glyphs and into English: "lost in fire".
Carter matched the coordinates which Daniel translated from the name and found that they had tried to dial the planet a few years ago, but could not get a lock. Daniel said that it must be buried, lost in fire.
Upon arrival, they saw that the planet was covered in lava flow. According to Carter, the sun was a red giant, a star which is near the end of its life, and estimated that a million years ago, the planet might have looked very much like Earth. They found a perfectly-shaped dome-like structure on the surface and determined that a force shield must have shaped the cooled-down lava over a small outpost. They donned their hazmat suits and used their cargo ship's ring transporter to gain access to the "bubble".
Daniel immediately recognized the architecture as being of Ancient design. Jack led the team to the middle of a chamber which had a chair centered in it. He immediately knew how to use the chair and brought the outpost back to life. He cleared the atmosphere to make it breathable and then accessed the outpost's database to display holographic projections above his head. He showed the Ancients' galactic domain and then zoomed in on Earth and the continent of Antarctica and declared "Terra Atlantus" — Terra, being Earth, and Altantus, being the name of the city Atlantis. All of this time, the Lost City of the Ancients had been the mythical Lost City of Atlantis.
The map of Earth that Jack projected, however, showed Earth of 30 million years ago, before the continent of Antarctica had drifted to the southern pole and frozen over. Antarctica was where they had found the second Stargate and the frozen Ancient woman Ayiana. Jack said that what they sought was buried under the ice. (1.18 "Solitudes", 6.04 "Frozen", 7.22 "Lost City Part 2")
The reason for the map's being off 30 million years was not given. It could have been either the age of the knowledge stored in the Repository of Knowledge, or the age of the data left behind in the Taonas Outpost (Praclarush is the name of the planet).
But Jack didn't take them all the way out to Praclarush just to tell them that the Lost City was on Earth; he had brought them out there knowing that the power source to the Ancient Outpost in Antarctica was depleted and that the Taonas Outpost had an operational one that they could use. This power source, since called a Zero Point Module (ZPM), was taken from the base of the chair's platform. SG-1 had to leave Taonas quickly thereafter because the molten lava domed over the Outpost began to collapse. Most likely, Taonas is now completely "lost in fire". The ZPM, however, was used to replace the depleted one in Antarctica and powered the Outpost's defenses which destroyed all of Anubis's ships.
According to the Ascended Ancient Morgan Le Fay, Praclarush Taonas was one of the first "Lantian cities" established by the Ancients in the Milky Way Galaxy and was abandoned when its inhabitants learned of the sun's approaching demise (10.03 "The Pegasus Project"). This demise might have been predicted as soon as the Outpost was established because the name of the planet and outpost means "lost in fire". They left the Taonas Outpost relatively intact, keeping its shield up for as long as possible, even after the lava flow of the planet covered it.
At this time, there are only two Outposts known to have existed in the Milky Way Galaxy: Praclarush Taonas and Earth's Antarctic Outpost. The city of Atlantis, identified with the Antarctic Outpost, was actually a city-ship which left Earth five to ten million years ago, leaving the Antarctic Outpost intact, but eventually depleting the ZPM which powered the Outpost's shields and defenses. It is unclear that there existed a city-ship along with the Taonas Outpost, but because Le Fay referred to Praclarush Taonas as a "Lantian city", it is possible that there was a city-ship used in its evacuation just as the Atlantis city-ship was used to abandon the Antarctic Outpost in Antarctica. (7.22 "Lost City Part 2", 10.03 "The Pegasus Project"; Stargate Atlantis: 1.01-1.02 "Rising")
Gallery
Episodes
Related Characters
Related Articles
Keywords
- Ancient Gene
- Ancient Language
- Ancients
- Antarctica
- Ascended Beings
- Atlantis
- Cargo Ship
- P3X-439
- Repository of Knowledge
- Ring Transporter
- Zero Point Module (ZPM)
Other
--DeeKayP 12:04, 13 Oct 2004 (PDT)