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Pantheon

Apophis (Apep, Apepi, Aapep)

Status:

Deceased

SG-1 Persona:

Perhaps Ra's greatest rival before Ra's death, Apophis held significant power among the System Lords. His visit to Earth, and then Abydos, in search of potential hosts for his Queen led to the reinstatement of the SGC.

Apophis has had numerous encounters with SG-1, beginning with their escape from his stronghold on Chulak. He caused the temporary deaths of three members of the team on the Nox homeworld. He led a failed attack on Earth with his son Klorel, and later attempted to corrupt Teal's son Rya'c. He also fathered a human son with Amonet's host Sha're, Daniel Jackson's Abydonian wife.

SG-1 again encountered Apophis when they helped him escape from Sokar, another System Lord. His host body succumbed to its injuries and was returned through the Stargate to end Sokar's attack on the SGC, but the Tok'ra Martouf speculated that Sokar might revive Apophis in a sarcophagus and continue to torture him.

Subsequent events on Netu (a moon of Sokar's home planet Delmak) showed this to be true--a disfigured Apophis served as First Prime to Bynarr, Lord of Netu, under the name Na'onak. With the arrival of SG-1, however, Apophis killed Bynarr and reclaimed his true name. Apophis attempted to gain Sokar's trust in order to kill him, and ended up escaping from Sokar's ship to Delmak just prior to the destruction of both Netu and the ship.

The SGC became aware that Apophis had survived the explosion of Netu when the Tok'ra Anise, during an experiment with Atanik armband technology, asked SG-1 to sabotage a new pyramid ship that Apophis was having built. Though the ship was successfully destroyed, the fact that Apophis now had the materials and workers to attempt such a project was an indication that he was an increasing threat.

Apophis' displeasure with Teal'c defection came back to haunt the team when Jack O'Neill and Teal'c became trapped in a disabled death glider in space. The glider, adapted by the Air Force from parts salvaged after the defeat of Apophis' attack on Earth and existing Earth technology, carried a hidden recall device designed to strand any Jaffa who attempted to flee from Apophis' forces.

Having successfully absorbed Sokar's former forces, Apophis arranged to meet with Heru'ur in the Tobin system to discuss an alliance against the remaining System Lords, which would significantly tip the balance of power in the galaxy. SG-1 (sans Teal'c) and Jacob Carter reprogrammed one of the mines orbiting the planet to make the rivals believe each was attempting to ambush the other. However Apophis had brought a massive fleet of cloaked pyramid ships to the rendezvous, and during the subsequent battle, Heru'ur's ship was destroyed.

After absorbing Heru'ur's forces into his own and after the death of Cronos at the hands of SG-1, Apophis became the undisputed major force among the System Lords. When SG-1 attempted to help relocate the Tok'ra and their Stargate, a spy revealed their location to Apophis, who came to the Vorash system with a large fleet of pyramid ships. Although SG-1 and Jacob Carter managed to cover for the fleeing Tok'ra and to destroy a large percentage of the attacking fleet by causing the explosion of Vorash's sun, SG-1's and Apophis' pyramid ships were flung together out of our galaxy, hundreds of light years from home.

When Apophis' ship was overrun by Replicators, he and a brainwashed Teal'c took over SG-1's ship. When the Replicators also gained control of this ship and returned it to our galaxy, SG-1 was able to disable the sublight engines, leaving Apophis behind to crash into Delmak.

Episodes:

Reference(s):

Encyclopedia Mythica:
An Egyptian monster living in perpetual darkness. This snake god is the chief of the antagonists of the sun god Re and each night he tries to stop the sun god's barque on his journey through the underworld. In the struggle between light and darkness, the monster is wounded by the divine entourage of Re with knives and spears. The god Seth and the god Mehen were often depicted defending the solar barque.

Apep is the personification of darkness, evil, and chaos. Occasionally, the battle was decided in his favor, causing a solar eclipse, but his victories were of short duration for Re always triumphed in the end. Eventually, Apep was slain by Re, who cut up his body and burned it. The Greeks referred to him as Apophis.

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