Yat'yir
Summary
Yat'yir is a Jaffa who was formerly in service to the Goa'uld Montu. He had an active role on the Free Jaffa Nation's High Council, supporting Gerak's rise in power which was based on military might. Yat'yir supported Gerak's position that the Free Jaffa should embrace the Ori even after Gerak's death, but his attempt to take Gerak's position as leader of the Free Jaffa was thwarted when the Jaffa High Council voted for a democracy. Yat'yir most likely still holds a position on the Interim High Council which was organized to see to state matters until the outcome of the general elections.
Character Biography
Yat'yir had a decidedly adversarial attitude towards Teal'c and other Free Jaffa who believed in democracy. It was Gerak's and Yat'yir's stance that the Free Jaffa should be ruled by those with the strongest military power. Yat'yir accompanied Gerak to the first meeting that Gen. Landry requested so that they could discuss the alliance between the Free Jaffa and Tau'ri. Yat'yir immediately suspected all of the Tau'ri's motives and questioned their interest in planets which had formerly been ruled by the Goa'uld and had viable naquadah mines. Because naquadah is the foundation for the Goa'uld's technology, and thus, the Free Jaffa's, Yat'yir suspected that the Tau'ri were interested in mining these planets for their own military gain. Teal'c pointed out that these planets had substantial human populations who were in need of help in becoming self-sufficient. Yat'yir immediately questioned Teal'c's loyalty. (9.03 "Origin Part 3")
Yat'yir was present when the first Prior of the Ori in the Milky Way Galaxy was brought into the SGC by Col. Mitchell and SG-12 from the planet P3X-421. Gerak wished to hear the Prior's presentation of Origin, the religion of the Ori which promised the Path to Enlightenment (ascension) to all who believed and followed. The Path to Enlightenment has been part of the Jaffa's belief system for thousands of years. While the Prior spoke of Origin and the Ori, Gen. Landry and Col. Mitchell discovered the true threat the Prior posed and quickly put him under guard. Seeing no way of escape, the Prior set himself on fire and left nothing of himself behind. Gerak was outraged by the SGC's interruption of his investigation into the Prior's threat. (9.03 "Origin Part 3")
After it came to Gerak's attention that the former System Lord Ba'al was hiding out on Earth, he sent Jaffa to the planet to find him. He didn't inform Teal'c or the SGC. There was a great deal of tension built up between the Tau'ri and the Free Jaffa when both groups conducted their searches separately. Teal'c and Col. Pendergast of the Prometheus found Yat'yir hiding behind Earth's moon with a ha'tak which was used as a base from which cloaked cargo ships could operate. After Teal'c asked Yat'yir to join the Tau'ri in the search instead of continuing to offend them, Yat'yir could only apologize and say that it was too late to mend the differences between them. (9.07 "Ex Deus Machina")
Yat'yir was Gerak's lieutenant, and as such, he often did things for Gerak which were not pleasant. Included in this was the torture of a Goa'uld who was also hiding out on Earth by taking a businessman named Alex Jameson as a host. Jameson was formerly of The Trust, the organization of former NID agents and wealthy businessmen who aimed to protect the world from alien invasion in illegal and immoral ways. Gerak insisted that Yat'yir use the Goa'uld pain stick to get the information from the Jameson Goa'uld as to the whereabouts of Ba'al. Yat'yir hesitated because he and his people had been the victims of the pain stick during their time of service to the Goa'uld. Gerak said it was only appropriate that the pain stick be used against the Goa'uld. Relunctantly and with obvious disgust, Yat'yir tortured the information out of the Jameson Goa'uld and such treatment most likely ended in the man's death. (9.07 "Ex Deus Machina")
The Ori attempted an invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy by means of the building of a Super Stargate through which a fleet of attack ships could travel. In order to power this Super Stargate from the great distance of the Ori's home galaxy, the Ori needed the energy produced by a black hole, so they went about creating one by collapsing the planet Kallana with a force field energized by the weapons the Free Jaffa and Tau'ri used against it. Kallana had been a Free Jaffa planet and one of Yat'yir's cousins died when the planet was destroyed. He was shocked that Gerak had suggested that the Free Jaffa Nation embrace the Ori and their religion after the destruction of their people. Yat'yir read The Book of Origin and found no proof of the Ori's claim to be gods. Gerak insisted that he read it again to see that everything that the Jaffa have looked for was written in its pages. (9.06 "Beachhead", 9.10 "The Fourth Horseman Part 1")
Gerak learned that Teal'c and Bra'tac were assembling a resistence to his authority on the planet Chulak. He and Yat'yir took a ha'tak to the planet and planned to open fire on their encampment. The result would have been the death of many innocent people, including children. Yat'yir did as he was commanded and targeted Teal'c's location, but Gerak could not bring himself to kill his brethren. He returned to Dakara and asked for guidance from the Prior of the Ori and this Prior was instrumental in having Gerak converted into a Prior himself, thus getting closer to converting the entire Free Jaffa Nation. Yat'yir spoke to the High Council and stated that conversion was inevitable or they would all be destroyed by the Ori. Just then, Gerak entered the chambers and when Yat'yir saw that Gerak had been converted into a Prior, he appeared to be as shocked as everyone else. (9.10 "The Fourth Horseman Part 1")
Gerak's support on the Jaffa High Council increased after his conversion to a Prior. They could not doubt the powers he demonstrated and they valued his leadership in making the decision to support the conversion to Origin. Because Teal'c and Bra'tac knew that the Ori were false gods, they held onto the hope that they could build enough opposition to show Gerak the error of his decision to wipe out those who opposed the Ori. After gathering their support on Chulak, Teal'c and Bra'tac waited for the civil war to begin. Before firing the first shot which would undoubtedly see the end of thousands of Jaffa, Gerak agreed to meet with Teal'c one more time to discuss the issues. Teal'c reached the Jaffa still within Gerak and Gerak realized he was wrong in starting a war among his own people. Gerak agreed to use his powers as a Prior to save lives, rather than destroy them. He went with Teal'c to Earth and healed those in the SGC, including General Landry, who were dying of the Prior Plague. Immediately after doing so, Gerak's body was consumed by fire, apparently the kill switch programmed into Priors who turn from the Ori. (9.11 "The Fourth Horseman Part 2")
With Gerak's death, support for his cause grew firm among those who were his supporters, including Yat'yir. They used their position of power to hurry a vote through the Council which would make Origin the nation-wide religion of the Jaffa. Teal'c and Bra'tac had some supporters for a democracy where every Jaffa's vote would be equal to another's. Their position was threatened by Yat'yir and his followers, so they also wanted to hurry the vote, but for democracy. The Council was near an impasse when Ba'al began to interfere by capturing and brainwashing the council members who were on the side for democracy. Ba'al intended that he turn the council in his favor and fight the Ori as a unified nation under his command. His scheming backfired, and it seriously jeapordized the Jaffa Nation's vie for democracy. As it turned out, Yat'yir's support was not as strong as he thought and the vote for a democracy won in the end. An Interim Council was formed until the outcome of the general elections. With this vote, Yat'yir's attempt to hold onto Gerak's power structure failed and the Free Jaffa remained opponents of the Ori and allies of the Tau'ri. (9.14 "Stronghold")
Episodes
- 9.03 "Origin Part 3"
- 9.06 "Beachhead"
- 9.07 "Ex Deus Machina"
- 9.10 "The Fourth Horseman Part 1"
- 9.11 "The Fourth Horseman Part 2"
- 9.14 "Stronghold"
Related Characters
- Teal'c
- Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell
- Gen. Hank Landry
- Ba'al
- Bra'tac
- Gerak
- Alex Jameson
- Montu
- Col. Pendergast
Related Articles
- Chulak
- Dakara
- Free Jaffa Nation
- Goa'uld
- Goa'uld Pain Stick
- Ha'tak
- Kallana
- Naquadah
- NID
- Ori
- P3X-421
- Priors of the Ori
- Prometheus
- Super Stargate
- SG-12
- Tau'ri
- The Trust
Actor
--DeeKayP 08:55, 25 Aug 2005 (PDT)