Stargate is owned by Studio Canal. The movie novelisation by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich is published by Signet.

Stargate SG-1 is owned by MGM, based on Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich.

The Search

A Stargate story

His ship, a colossal metallic pyramid, lifted up and away from the dying world. Looking through a monitor, he watched his world grow smaller as the ship receded from the planet.

In a way, he was fortunate. He would not stay and witness the extinction of his race. He would not watch his people die. Thousands of years of civilisation, dying.

His body was weak, ravaged by the same condition which afflicted his people. Fortunately, he managed to control his ship by his thoughts alone; through his link to the ship, it acted almost like an extension of his own body. Of course, he could still control the ship manually, but in his weakened state, he did not know how long he would be able to do so, hence the mental link. His body would stay in stasis, contained within a pod capable of sustaining him.

He was determined to not share the same fate as the rest of his people. Among his technological achievements was the ability to incorporate himself into a new body. In doing so, he would be able to extend his life. He would live on, the last remnant of his race.

All he needed now was a new body, a new vessel to carry his life.

He had a few criteria for the host body: the creature had to be advanced from an evolutionary perspective, preferably an oxygen-breather (so he would not have to alter his ship's life-support system), bipedal, with hands capable of fine motor control (so he could continue to manipulate objects), possessed of full colour vision and a large brain to store information (he suspected that his perception and his mental abilities could be limited by those of his host) and with sufficient ability to regenerate damage. Ideally, he would live a life as close to that afforded by his original body as possible. Maybe even a better life, depending on the body.

He had to be careful, though. When he incorporated himself into a new body, he would not just take the body. He would also absorb the knowledge, the memory, the personality traits of the host.

He searched among the star systems in this galaxy, looking for a body, a way to continue and extend his life. Despite his race's star faring, there were many worlds in this galaxy that were unexplored, some of which he suspected harboured life capable of supporting him.

He had a plan, a procedure he would follow: scan a star and look for planets. The ideal was rocky planets or moons that were a certain distance from the star, with temperatures and gravitational fields within a certain range. If he found a planet or moon that met these criteria, he would bring the ship into orbit to scan for life. If sufficiently advanced life was found, he would bring the ship into a lower orbit to scan the life more closely. If the life turned out to be unsuitable, he would simply leave.

There were many stars. They were great distances from each other, and even with his faster-than-light drive, it would take time to travel from star to star. In addition, not all of them had orbiting planets, and not all of these planets were capable of supporting life, and not all of those planets actually had life. Of those that did, not all had sufficiently advanced life to hold him. He knew, therefore, that there would be many star systems that simply did not have what he was looking for.

It would be a long search. Fortunately, with his body in stasis, and his mind connected to the ship, he could wait that long. Had he remained conscious and used manual control, he would have died, leaving the ship as an empty shell, a floating testament to his race.

He was 'conscious' while the ship scanned stars and planets, and 'unconscious' while the ship cruised between stars. The ship's sensors were his eyes and ears, giving him perception that his body, even in its physiological prime, would not have afforded him.

He lost track of time. Stars and planets became a blur.

There were many, many forms of life. The most common was the simplest; unicellular. Fewer worlds had multicellular life, and even fewer had more advanced forms. None were suitable for him as a new host.

Ultimately, his search was fruitless. There were worlds that had life, but none was suitable for him. He would have to travel outside this galaxy and find worlds in other galaxies.

The vast distances between galaxies meant that it would take a long time for him to reach the nearest galaxy. He would sleep in that time, gather strength. The ship could take care of itself, only awakening him when it ran into trouble.

And so, the ship flew on.