Prologue: The Tale of Janus

I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate. They belong to Joss Whedon and MGM, I think... The prologue is based, in style, on the narrative of Galadriel in the movie 'Fellowship of the Ring'. I do not own that either. It belongs to John Tolkien and Peter Jackson in some form or other. Please note that despite my use of the FotR narrative as a base for prologue, this will not be a LotR cross of any sort.

"The galaxy has changed: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, I see it written in the stars... Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

"It began with the rise of four great races. First among them were the Ancients, powerful and crafty, the builders of the Stargates. Second were the Asgard, great cloners and masters of many advanced weapons. And Third... third among them were the Nox who, above all else, desire peace. Fourth and last were the Furlings, the great nomads of the galaxy. But they were all of them doomed... for in each race was built the seeds of destruction. The Ancients, dying out from a plague of their own making, ascended to another level of existence. The Asgard, dying out from cloning themselves for so long, still desperately try to preserve their race, even as they are being overrun by the Replicators. The Nox, caught up in their pacifism, have retreated to a single world and become largely irrelevant in the scheme of the galaxy. And finally the Furlings simply moved on from the area, seeking greener pastures.

"On the planet Taura Atlantus, in the deserts of Ancient Egypt, the System Lord Ra discovered a new type of host to control... and upon this race he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One by one the free planets of the galaxy fell to the power of the Goa'uld, empowered by their new hosts.

"But there were some who resisted. A secret alliance of the children of Egeria, one of Ra's consorts, formed to fight the Goa'uld from within. And so the Tok'ra were born. On the planet Kheb was where the first true battle was fought. The Tok'ra who led the uprising of Kheb against Ra was a legend nearly matching Queen Egeria. This Tok'ra's name was Janus. Ra had been taken off guard by the young hothead of the Tok'ra. Victory was near! But the power of Ra could not be undone quite so easily. It was in this moment when all hope had faded, that Ra, so-called God of the Sun, created a martyr that the Tok'ra would not soon forget. Janus, the enemy of Ra, was slain. The words Janus spoke that day passed down through secret Jaffa legend and would later be on the lips of all Jaffa who were slain fighting against the false gods. 'I die free…'

"But the eyes of mortals are easily deceived. And the power of Kheb was greater the any might have guessed. There was little I could do to prevent Janus' death, and what little I could do, I would not. Janus was a unique case in that he was not an Ancient, nor did I help him ascend. He is perhaps the only being outside of the Ancients and the Ori who has ever managed to ascend to our level.

"A rebellion sprang up on Taura Atlantus, possibly in response to Janus' noble stand, passed on among the underground, or possibly due to a similar desire for freedom there. Luckily for those people, they proved to be successful and even buried their gate… and some things that should not have been forgotten... were lost. History became legend... legend became myth. And for a very long time, the gate and the Goa'uld passed out of all knowledge. Until, when chance came, it ensnared a new keeper! The gate came to Catherine Langford, who eventually took it deep under Cheyenne Mountain. And there, it was opened. The gate was finally cracked by an archaeologist named Daniel Jackson. And in the deserts of Abydos, with a colossal amount of luck, Daniel Jackson and Jack O'Neill managed to kill Ra, forever changing the landscape of the galaxy.

"With Ra dead, division crept back into the midst of the System Lords, allowing the Tok'ra to make new headway at last. Rumour grew of the death of the greatest of the gods... whispers of a nameless doubt in the servants of the gods. And Janus, clever bastard that he is, perceived that his time had come again. He planned to abandon his ascended form, but needed a host to inhabit. And something happened then that Janus did not intend... He was called upon by a minor practitioner of the arcane arts to empower a spell... A chaos spell... Ethan Rayne's spell was so frivolous that Janus was nearly insulted until he noted one boy whose costume included a Goa'uld hand device. It was fate, Janus decided. Exercising a little known loophole that allows one to use their ascended powers to aid those who call them, Janus empowered the ritual and used it to retake corporeal form within a human host. For the time will soon come when Janus and his new host will shape the fortunes of all..."

~ Oma Desala

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Jasper