Dr. Daniel Jackson is a man apart from his peers. An Egyptologist, Jackson has come under fire for his unusual theories regarding Egyptian civilization in general, and the great pyramid of Giza in particular. Though he has no idea who built the great pyramid, Dr. Jackson is sure that it was not the pharaohs.

Ostracized by his colleagues and evicted from his apartment, Jackson can fit his entire life into two bags. Then he is approached by a woman named Catherine and given a job offer: translating ancient hieroglyphs. With nowhere else to go, Jackson accepts.

Taken to an underground Air Force base inside Creek Mountain, Colorado, Catherine introduces Jackson to Drs. Barbara Shore and Gary Meyers. For the past two years, they and Catherine have been working to translate a strange set of hieroglyphs carved into a huge cover stone found in Giza. Catherine's father found it, along with something else. Not a sarcophagus, something far more interesting...

But before Jackson can find out what that something is the new Air Force Officer in charge, Colonel O'Neil, informs him that this project has become classified.

For two weeks, Dr. Jackson works on the translation. The inner track of symbols in the traditional hieroglyphs comes easy enough (reading, in part, "A million years into the sky/Ra, Sun God/ Sealed and buried for all time is his Stargate ."), but the outer track is composed of symbols that do not match with any known language.

Frustrated, Jackson goes out of the lab to get water for a pot of coffee when he spies a guard reading a newspaper. On the back of the paper is a picture of the constellation Orion.

Hit with an epiphany, Jackson calls a meeting off the local brass. He feels the untranslatable symbols are, in fact, constellations, with seven constellations arranged in the center of the cover stones to form a planetary address of sorts. Six points to find the exact center of any three-dimensional space (in this case, the universe) and a seventh symbol for a point of origin (Earth).

Dr. Meyers protests, sighting that the seventh symbol Jackson points out is "nowhere on the device."

"What device?" Jackson asks.

"Show him," General West says.

They show Jackson a ring of gray/brown metal, easily 20 feet tall, standing vertically on its side. "It's your Stargate ," Catherine informs him.

Programming the seven symbols into the Stargate , the team watches as the Stargate's inner circle begins to spin. When all seven symbols are locked into place, a nimbus of light opens within the Stargate's center, rippling like water.

Sending a probe through the gate, the team discovers that the gate has formed a link with a similar Stargate  on the other side of the known universe. Together, the Gates functioned as a doorway between Earth and the unknown world in the Kalium Galaxy.

Pictures reveal that the symbols on the Kalium Gate are different from those of the Earth Gate. General West is less then enthused. "This project is for naught without a reconnaissance mission."

Whoever is sent through the Stargate  will have to essentially "dial home" after first deciphering the symbols on the other Stargate .

"Well, I can do that," Jackson says casually.

"You're on the team," General West informs him.

As he packs to leave, Catherine gives him a golden necklace she found with the Stargate  as a child. It's a small medallion, stamped with the Eye or Ra. "It will bring you luck," she says.

Headed by Colonel O'Neil, the team enters the Stargate , coming through with no apparent problems. Exploring the structure that surrounds the Kalium Stargate, the team finds no signs of life. Outside, they find themselves in a vast desert. Ascending a hill and looking back, they find something even stranger: the Kalium Stargate  is housed inside an exact replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

"I knew it," Jackson says.

However, this presents a problem. As a replica of the Great Pyramid, there are no symbols on or around the structure. No carved relief of any kind. Without and order of alignment, there's no way for Jackson to "dial home." No way for the team to get back.

This revelation inspires some ire from the Air Force men, most of it done behind Colonel O'Neil's back. Venturing out into the desert to retrieve a suitcase full of books, Jackson comes across a huge, almost bison-like animal with a harness around its head. Jackson feeds it some chocolate.

"I wouldn't feed that thing," O'Neil warns him.

Jackson points out its harness when, suddenly, the animal rears up and starts running. With his foot wrapped up in its lead rope, the animal drags Jackson off into the desert.

Licked awake, Jackson awakens in time to meet up with a trio of military men, led by O'Neil, who chased him through the desert. Walking away from Jackson, the three notice something over a sand dune. Joining them, Jackson sees a huge mine, populated by people speaking a language he can't begin to recognize.

As they approach the mine, ever worker in the mine falls to the ground in penitence, as if praying to the men. An old man appears from inside the mine, riding another of the bison like animals. The only work Jackson can make out is "Kasuf", the man's name.

Through his bowing, Kasuf invites the four men to go with him back to a huge city seemingly made of Adobe. The men arrive just in time, avoiding a gigantic sandstorm swirling outside.

Back at the pyramid, the rest of the team has to abandon their base came and retreat inside the pyramid.

Inside the city, Jackson recognizes a symbol carved into a huge golden disk: the Eye of Ra. The disk matches Jackson's medallion exactly. The people of this planet believe the Earthmen to be messengers from the God of the Sun.

Following logic, Jackson draws the eye of Ra in the sand. Kasuf's reaction is immediate and fearful, stamping the symbol out. It seems writing is forbidden to these people.

Evidently thinking they have offended him in someway, Jackson is taken away to a tent by a gang of women. The women proceed to wash his hands and feet vigorously until he (gently) fights them off. They leave with many bows and a much younger, much more beautiful woman enters. Thinking she is another "cleaning woman" Jackson dismisses her...until she begins to disrobe.

Startled, Jackson puts her clothes back on her and almost takes her out of his tent. He stops only when he realizes that she is a "gift" from Kasuf, obviously the chief of this particular hamlet. To reject her would be a great insult and cause serious cultural damage. He retreats back into his tent when the girl. He tells him his name as best he can. She tells him her name is Sha'uri. Jackson draws a pyramid to illustrate where he came from, but she looks away. "Forget it," he says.

Only then does she begin to draw in the sand, drawing a pyramid with a sun above it. The symbol for Earth. Jackson asks (through rudimentary sign language) if she's seen this symbol somewhere. She nods. "Show me," he says.

Back at the pyramid, the rest of Colonel O'Neil's team huddles from the storm. The sounds of the storm are soon blotted out by much louder noises. Outside, and even larger pyramid descends from the sky, using the comparatively smaller pyramid as a landing platform. Inside, the team spreads out, only to be picked off one by one by an unseen enemy.

Sha'uri leads Jackson to a cave covered with hieroglyphics. As he mumbles the words aloud to himself, Sha'uri begins to repeat it, and understand it. The people of this planet speak an ancient dialect of Egyptian, not spoken on Earth in thousands of years. As Jackson begins to grasp the mechanics of the language, he learns the true story of Egypt, the pyramids, and the Sun God Ra.

When O'Neil finds him, Jackson relates the story. A traveling alien search the stars, looking for a way to prolong it's own life. It found a primitive race, humans, and saw within them a chance for eternal life. With his technology, he could sustain and control them forever. He possessed the body of a young boy and appointed himself emperor, using the Stargate  to bring hundreds of slaves to this planet to mine the unique mineral found on this planet. All of Ra's technology springs from this mineral, including the Stargate .

In another chamber of the cave, Daniel finds a chart of six constellations, just as he did on Earth. But the seventh symbol is worn away by time. The team skill can't return home.

The next day at sunrise, with the storm cleared, the Earthmen set off for the pyramid. They find a gigantic pyramid-ship perched over the original, stone pyramid, and no sign of the rest of the Special Forces team.

Entering the pyramid, they come under heavy fire from men carrying staffs that fire bolts of energy. The men wear seemingly robotic helmets in the shape of a falcon's head. They are dressed as the god Horus.

Fighting their way through the Horus men, Jackson and O'Neil make it to the Stargate. O'Neil begins to search through the team's equipment, looking for something in particular. Suddenly, a section of the ceiling opens and six rings, looking like miniature Stargates, descend. These function as a teleportation system, and a man materializes within the rings. He carries a staff and wears the metal head of a jackal. The god Anubis. With one gun between them, O'Neil and Jackson surrender.

They are teleported inside the pyramid ship, right into a huge audience chamber. A man dressed in a huge headdress enters, surrounded by dozens of half-naked concubines. He wears a metal face as well, the face of a pharaoh, the face of the sphynx. The face of the Sun God, Ra. At his order, the "gods" remove their masks, revealing their human faces.

Ra's servants set an atomic bomb in front of Jackson and O'Neil. The bomb is of human origin. Jackson asks O'Neil about the bomb. O'Neil is uncommunicative. Instead, he grabs a staff weapon and blasts a Horus guard, takes aim at Ra...but Ra's servants surround the Sun God, protecting him. O'Neil hesitates and Anubis knocks him cold.

Outside the pyramid, two Horus' take off in airships shaped like predatory birds. With on-board energy staffs, they bombard Kasuf's town from above. Inside the pyramid, O'Neil is thrown into the hold with the rest of his captured military teammates. In another chamber, Daniel wakes up, "repaired" by a high-tech sarcophagus. He's escorted to Ra's bedroom. The Sun God tells Jackson that he will soon send the atomic bomb back through the Stargate , along with a shipment of the mineral that is the building block of his technology, amplifying the explosion a hundred fold. He also plans to have Daniel publicly execute the military team, or else Ra will kill everyone who has seen the Earthmen.

Sha'uri calls the youths of the city together, bringing them to the cavern of hieroglyphs. She tells them the story Daniel told her, and why they can no longer live as slaves to false gods.

Ra's public execution is interrupted when the Sha'uri's band of youths being firing the military men's guns into the air. The resulting panic allows the Earthmen and the youths to slip away into the mountains. Once at a safe cavern, O'Neil tells everyone his true orders. He tells them he was to search for signs of any hostile civilization and, if he found one, blow up the Stargate .

Inside the pyramid, Ra takes out his anger on an unfortunate captain of the Horus guards, liquefying the man's brain with a powerful gauntlet. Ra will not accept failure.

In the caverns, Jackson finds out that Sha'uri is actually his wife, and has been ever since she was "given" to him by Kasuf. She did not tell anyone that he did not consummate their marriage with her. "I didn't tell them that you didn't want me," she says. Jackson takes the opportunity to correct that assumption by consummating their marriage.

The next day Jackson finds Sha'uri's brother drawing a picture on the wall "The day of our victory," he calls it. It is a pyramid below the planet's three moons. On a hunch, Jackson connects the moons, finding the symbol for this planet. The point of origin. He can send everyone home now.

At the mine, O'Neil sneaks in and kills a Horus guard. Kasuf and everyone else falls to their knees, saying that the Earthmen and the youths will "bring disaster upon us all." But Jackson retracts the Horus' helmet, showing him to be just a man. "Take a look at your God," Jackson advises. "Take a good look."

The revolutionaries sneak up to the pyramid disguised as a caravan paying tribute to Ra. Daniel, Sha'uri and O'Neil sneak inside, blowing away the Horus' on the inside of the pyramid, but not before the Horus' seal the pyramid, trapping the bulk of the revolutionaries outside. Ra deploys two airships to bombard the revolutionaries. Inside, O'Neil activates the bomb, saying that it's now Daniel's job to disassemble the gate back on Earth. But before Daniel can activate the gate Sha'uri is shot by a surviving Horus. The Horus doesn't survive for long.

Daniel transports up to Ra's ship and takes Sha'uri to the sarcophagus. In his place, Anubis teleports into the Stargate's chamber and begins fighting O'Neil. Outside, the revolutionaries run completely out of ammo. With no other option, they surrender to the Horus'.

The sarcophagus heals Sha'uri and Daniel heads back to the transporter. Ra intercepts him, and attacks him with the gauntlet. "I am no longer amused," the Sun God says.

Below, O'Neil gains the upper hand in his battle with Anubis. He maneuvers the jackal man's head inside the transporter rings, teleporting it off of his body. Daniel and Sha'uri beam down in his place, escaping Ra's wrath.

Outside, all looks bleak. Then, the miners pour from the hills, led by Kasuf. The huge work force mob the two "gods" and take them down easily. Fed up with these impudent humans, Ra begins to lift off.

In the Stargate  chamber, the atomic bomb is still counting down. "He's leaving, turn it off," Jackson says. O'Neil can't. "They've got it rigged." With no other option, they teleport the bomb into Ra's ship. It blasts the pyramid out of orbit.

Exiting, the conquering heroes face a crowd of cheering people, liberated from the rule of the false gods.

Inside, Daniel opens the Stargate . The team goes through. All but O'Neil, who pauses. Jackson has decided to stay. At home he had nothing. Here he has a wife and a family. An entire people, in fact. A place to belong. "You sure you gonna be okay?" O'Neil asks him. Jackson looks at his wife and his new family. "I'm gonna be okay. You?" O'Neil looks at him. "Yeah...yeah, I think I am." Jackson gives him Catherine's medallion. "Tell her it brought me luck," he says. O'Neil takes it. "Be seeing you, Dr. Jackson," he says and walks off into the Stargate .

written by Dr. Psy Chosis