Teal'c's History
Teal'c of Chulak, sometimes referred to as 'Shol'va' (traitor) by those allied with the Goa'uld, is a male Jaffa politician and revolutionary from the planet Chulak who is a member of the Jaffa High Council and once served as a member of Stargate Command's flagship reconnaissance team SG-1.
Chosen because it means "strength" in the Goa'uld language, Teal'c was named by his father, Ronac. He was born on an unidentified world under the control of the System Lord Cronus circa 1899, where his father served as Cronus' First Prime. After failing to win an unwinnable battle, Cronus killed Ronac by crushing Ronac's symbiote within him, mingling the symbiote's blood with Ronac's, causing a prolonged and agonizing death. Cronus also exiled young Teal'c and Teal'c's mother to Chulak with Teal'c growing up on Chulak.
Consumed by nothing but the thought of revenge and swearing to avenge his father, Teal'c swore to become the First Prime of Apophis, Apophis being the mortal enemy of Cronus. Teal'c was eventually taken under the wing of Bra'tac who was the First Prime of Apophis at that time and who first planted the seeds of doubt about the Goa'uld in Teal'c's mind. After becoming First Prime, he successfully defied Apophis twice and spared two Jaffa, Va'lar and Del'nor, whom he was ordered to kill, and lied to Apophis that he had completed his mission. The fact Apophis wasn't aware of his deception was the final confirmation that he was not omniscient, and not a god.
After winning a battle with Arkad's forces, someone killed Teal'c's mother in her sleep. According to Bra'tac, someone slipped into the village in the middle of the night and slit her throat. Years later, Arkad claimed to be responsible, but Teal'c believed if he had been responsible, he was too cowardly to do it himself. Teal'c later married Drey'auc, and had a son, Rya'c.
During the year 1997, Teal'c was the First Prime of Apophis, despite his desire to free the Jaffa from Goa'uld rule. Teal'c joined Apophis in the search for a new host for his mate Amaunet, traveling to Earth and kidnapping Senior Airman Carol Weterings as well as to Abydos where he and his other Jaffa kidnapped Skaara and Sha're.
Watching on with the ritual of choosing Apophis' mate, Teal'c had to hide his own personal disgust at seeing Weterings die at Apophis' hands and then Amaunet claiming Sha're's body.
After the capture of the Earth team SG-1, Teal'c made note of their level of technology and realized they must be from a world that was sophisticated and free of the Goa'uld. He pointed them out to Bra'tac and explained his reasoning, but his mentor was suspicious of the humans and doubtful that they could possibly do anything to fight back against the System Lords.
When Teal'c and his other Jaffa had been ordered to kill other prisoners along with SG-1 in a jail cell, Colonel Jack O'Neill was able to convince Teal'c that his task of freeing the Jaffa could be possible through the Humans, and defected to them allowing all to escape to the Stargate. He helped defend the gate against a Jaffa assault and headed through the gate to Earth. Despite concern about his loyalties, O'Neill was able to convince Major General George S. Hammond that Teal'c was genuine. After successfully stopping Charles Kawalsky's Goa'uld but at the cost of killing Kawalsky, Teal'c was eventually accepted as a member of the SGC before being permanently assigned to the SGC's flagship team, SG-1.
When he realized that his son Rya'c would undergo his Prim'ta, Teal'c and SG-1 returned to Chulak to prevent the ceremony, meeting up with Bra'tac. Rya'c, however, had contracted scarlet fever, and Teal'c was forced to give his own symbiote to Ry'ac. However, Dr. Daniel Jackson and Captain Samantha Carter were able to acquire another symbiote, which was given to Teal'c. Ry'ac and his mother Drey'auc stayed on Chulak under the care of Bra'tac and he returned to Earth.
During a visit to the planet Cartago, Teal'c briefly faced execution when Hanno, the son of a man that he'd killed on his last visit to the planet, had Teal'c put on trial, but after Teal'c saved Hanno's life during a Jaffa attack, Hanno claimed that he had been mistaken, recognizing that Teal'c was no longer the Jaffa who had been responsible for his father's death.
When SG-1 successfully thwarted Apophis' attempt to invade Earth, Apophis chose to take his revenge by brainwashing Rya'c with Nish'ta. SG-1 and Bra'tac were able to infiltrate Chulak and rescue Rya'c. They returned to Earth and were able to prevent him from releasing a deadly poison into the atmosphere, but the brainwashing was harder to overcome. Teal'c eventually was forced to shoot Rya'c with a Zat'nik'tel, freeing him. Drey'auc and Rya'c were then taken to live in the Land of Light.
After Apophis claimed sanctuary on Earth, Teal'c reveled in his former god's fall from power, vowing that the day would become a holy day on Chulak.
When SG-1 was kidnapped by Hathor, Teal'c left for Chulak to raise an army to free them. He made an impassioned speech to the Jaffa, urging them to rebel. Only a few joined them, but with Major General George S. Hammond's help, he was able to fly the Needle Threader through the Stargate and SG-1 was rescued.
When Cronus, Nirrti, and Yu came to negotiate with the Asgard to include Earth in the Protected Planets Treaty, Nirrti used a Goa'uld cloaking device to attack him and Cronus in order to frame him for the crime, but Teal'c was soon exonerated and he quickly recovered from his injuries.
During a mission to rescue the Abydonians, Teal'c was forced to kill Sha're, Dr. Daniel Jackson's wife, as Amaunet, the Goa'uld who possessed her, was killing Daniel with a Kara kesh. Daniel quickly forgave him as Sha're had communicated with him through the Kara kesh.
During a trip to a planet caught in a civil war between the Bedrosians- who believed that they had evolved on their world- and the Optricans- who believed that they came from another planet-, the rest of SG-1 were captured by the Bedrosians and Teal'c was badly injured when his Staff weapon backfired in a fight, leaving him blind and Junior forced to focus on healing itself before it could heal Teal'c. Fortunately, Teal'c was aided by Nyan, a Bedrosian archaeologist who had discovered the Stargate, Nyan recognizing that, even if Teal'c was proof that his beliefs were wrong, as a scientist it was just as exciting to be proven wrong as to be proven right. Nyan was able to use a device to repair Teal'c's vision to a point where he was able to rescue his friends. Although Nyan was then forced to return with SG-1 to Earth after such an open betrayal, he expressed hope to Teal'c that he would some day be able to return and share his discoveries with them.
Shan'auc, a priestess and an old friend of Teal'c, came to Earth claiming that she had convinced her symbiote, Tanith to join the Tok'ra, Teal'c refused to believe her. However, after kelno'reeming and communicating with his own symbiote, he was convinced to take her to the Tok'ra. Teal'c, however, was forced to endure Tanith's presence after he murdered Shaun'ac, Tanith having never been swayed by Shan'auc's words and simply being used by the Tok'ra to provide disinformation to Apophis.
Teal'c was captured by the Jaffa of Heru'ur, who planned to give him as a gift to Apophis. However, Teal'c convinced the Jaffa Rak'nor to defect by resisting torture and the two escaped Heru'ur's Ha'tak in a Death Glider.
Teal'c finally had his revenge on Cronus when his robotic duplicate was able to kill the System Lord, which also allowed the Tau'ri to gain his personal Ha'tak.
Teal'c's long-standing grudge against Tanith returned with a vengeance months later when SG-1 embarked on a mission to destroy the Vorash's sun. Unfortunately, Teal'c's need for revenge against Tanith outweighed everything, even clouding his own judgment, something that ended up costing Teal'c his life when he died in an ambush orchestrated by Tanith who later captured Teal'c and presented him as a "gift" to Apophis. Using this to his advantage, Apophis brought Teal'c back to life with a Sarcophagus while also brainwashing Teal'c into believing that he was still Apophis' First Prime and that he had essentially acted as a double agent for the last four years. This effectively turned Teal'c against his teammates with Teal'c maintaining a strong, undying loyalty to Apophis. Even when Apophis was killed, Teal'c still refused to believe the truth. Bra'tac was brought to the SGC and forced to perform the Rite of M'al Sharran on Teal'c which succeeded in breaking the hold by helping Teal'c recall the events that had led to him recognizing that Apophis was not a god. After that, Teal'c was granted permission to officially rejoin SG-1.
During a mission, Teal'c was able to kill Tanith by destroying his Al'kesh with a Staff cannon, but the ship subsequently crashed into the still-active Stargate just as Teal'c was traveling through it, resulting in the wormhole being shut down before Teal'c could exit through the other end, leaving his pattern trapped in the Stargate buffer and forcing Stargate Command to try and devise a way to safely extract Teal'c without dialing another wormhole that would have erased his pattern from the gate's memory. Despite the odds against them- and the recommendation of Dr. Rodney McKay that Teal'c's pattern would have already degraded too significantly to be recovered-, SG-1 were able to recover Teal'c using the Russian Dial Home Device and advice from the Goa'uld using Adrian Conrad as a host.
When the Rebel Jaffa acquired a new leader in the form of K'tano, Teal'c was just as impressed by this new leader as his fellow Jaffa, even as he acknowledged to O'Neill's concerns that K'tano's tactics, such as suicide bombings, bore little real difference to the way the Goa'uld had treated the Jaffa for so long. After K'tano sent Teal'c to try and assassinate Lord Yu, Yu actually spared Teal'c's life and let him go, revealing that K'tano was actually the minor System Lord Imhotep, allowing Teal'c to expose K'tano's true identity after defeating him in Joma secu.
Shortly after this, Teal'c participated in a mission into Kali's territory to rescue the rest of SG-1 in the company of Captain Kirti Patel, the last survivor of SG-7, and Kail's First Prime, the Thakka, who had saved Captain Patel from a Reetou attack and been taken to safety by her in return. While travelling to Kali's planet via ship, Teal'c and Patel were able to convince the Thakka that Kali was not a god, but the Thakka and most of Kali's Jaffa were killed during the battle with the Reetou.
After Dr. Daniel Jackson died and ascended, Teal'c retreated into himself to manage his grief, noting that he had lost a great friend as well as the fight against the Goa'uld losing one of its greatest soldiers. Unlike Colonel Jack O'Neill and Major Samantha Carter, Teal'c bore Jonas Quinn no ill will, and actually took his desire to join SG-1 seriously. However, he found himself in a difficult emotional situation when he learned that Drey'auc had died, and Rya'c resented his father. After learning that Anubis was attacking Earth, Teal'c, Bra'tac, and Rya'c went on a mission to destroy the weapon. They succeeded, and Teal'c and Rya'c bonded.
While attending a meeting of Rebel Jaffa leaders, the Goa'uld attacked them, removing the symbiotes from the shol'vas. Teal'c and Bra'tac shared Junior between them, causing Teal'c to hallucinate. Dr. Daniel Jackson watched over him during that time. When SG-1 found them, Junior was already too overtaxed to save either of them, so Teal'c and Bra'tac went on Tretonin.
After being injured, Teal'c began to doubt his prowess as a warrior without his symbiote. Dr. Daniel Jackson, who had since descended, helped Teal'c to overcome his fears. During a meditation, Daniel had a subconscious flashback, seeing Rya'c and Bra'tac as slaves on Erebus. A rescue mission was successfully undertaken, and Teal'c found his confidence renewed.
Later, SG-1 encountered the Hak'tyl Resistance. Teal'c helped to convince Ishta, their leader, to take Tretonin instead of stealing symbiotes, and they developed affection for each other.
When Brigadier General Jack O'Neill became commander of Stargate Command, he allowed Teal'c to move off the base. However, Teal'c's code of honor forced him to intervene in disputes. He became close to his neighbor, Krista James, and was framed by The Trust for murdering her boyfriend Doug McNair. However, Teal'c was exonerated thanks to the efforts of Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter and Pete Shanahan.
Dr. Bill Lee and other scientists developed a computer training game program, using the Virtual reality pods that SG-1 had been trapped in years ago, for personnel which they tested on themselves. However, when the game was played by Teal'c with his extensive field experience, it was found lacking. The nature of the chairs’ programming “learned” from the user, and Lee requested Teal'c continue to play the scenario to improve it. Unfortunately, the game quickly became too tough for Teal'c, drawing on his memories of combat to increase the danger he faced in each scenario, to the point that the game would not even let Teal'c leave via the game failsafe as it recognized that Teal'c would normally never quit. Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter, studying Teal'c's brain patterns from their original experience in the chair, worried that the game would not actually allow Teal'c to win as, when the original scan was taken, Teal'c apparently believed that the Goa'uld could not be defeated, causing her to worry that Teal'c's subconscious would eventually kill him. Even more seriously, Teal'c's continued failures in the game resulted in him receiving sudden jolts each time he lost, causing spikes in his adrenaline production, which, in turn, caused his blood pressure and heart rate to rise dangerously, to the point that Teal'c would eventually suffer a heart attack if he remained in the system. Lee and Carter, inspired by a comment made by Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, exploited a fluke in the system by connecting a second pod up to Teal'c's system while removing the data recorder from the chair. This gave Dr. Daniel Jackson - chosen to prevent the game drawing on a soldier's tactical expertise and becoming even more difficult to defeat - a two-second advantage, allowing him to perceive events in the game two seconds in advance, allowing him to join the game and give Teal'c vital information. After several attempts, they were able to defeat the scenario and the pod deactivated, O'Neill confirmed Teal'c's assessment of his and Daniel's victory by simply noting that winning was what they did.
Rya'c, having met Kar'yn, an apprentice of Ishta, fell in love and asked her to marry him. Teal'c opposed the union, fearing that Ry'ac would soon have to choose between family and freedom, as he had. However, after helping Ishta's forces kill the System Lord Moloc, Teal'c eventually accepted Kar'yn, and approved of the union. He and Ishta kept from Rya'c and Kar'yn the fact that Moloc's forces had been absorbed by Ba'al to keep from ruining their honeymoon.
When the Replicators invaded the Milky Way, they came into conflict with Ba'al, and wiped out most of the System Lords. Many Rebel Jaffa defected back to the Goa'uld. To stop this, Teal'c proposed that they take Dakara, to shatter the Goa'uld's image as gods. The plan worked, and with the use of a weapon on Dakara, destroyed the Replicators and brought about the fall of the Goa'uld Empire. Afterwards, he and Bra'tac were made Blood Kin to all Jaffa.
Teal'c was still part of SG-1, having rejoined with the efforts of Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell, although now not in an official manner. The Rebel Jaffa has successfully pulled the plug for the Goa'uld and were now building their own society. Teal'c, however, was not glad over the way things were going, since the Jaffa High Council was based on military efforts and not on honor and integrity. Events came to a head when Gerak, the leader of the council, converted to Origin and became a Prior of the Ori. Teal'c was able to convince Gerak to abandon the Ori and help the Tau'ri.
Teal'c was able to convince the Lucian Alliance to help stop the Ori from creating a Supergate to bring ships into the galaxy. However, the plan failed, and Teal'c was tortured by Netan. However, the Odyssey was able to rescue Teal'c. After the beginning of the Ori crusade, they took control of many Jaffa strongholds including his homeworld Chulak, Dakara and several more worlds.
He helped try to reform the Free Jaffa Nation's government on Dar Eshkalon, where the settlement fell victim to a series of explosions, caused by a faction of Jaffa who embraced the Ori cause. Teal'c went on a quest for revenge by killing Arkad, a Jaffa that he believed to be the one responsible for the attacks (Although Bra'tac noted that Arkad had also played a role in the death of Teal'c's mother). During the brutal fight, Teal'c managed to drive the sword through Arkad's shoulder into his symbiote pouch, killing him.
He, along with SG-1 was stuck on the Odyssey in a Time dilation field for 50 years, but was bought back to the moment before the Odyssey was about to be destroyed by the Ori, providing Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter with a crystal containing a program that she had developed in the intervening time to shut down the Asgard computer core and prevent the Ori from tracking them. Teal'c volunteered for this duty as, while all of the team had aged fifty years during their 'imprisonment' aboard the Odyssey, his Jaffa lifespan meant that the lost years were less of an issue for him than they would be for others. The only visible sign of his age is a streak of grey hair on the right side of his head, although his skills and physique appear otherwise unaffected.
Sometime later, Dr. Daniel Jackson uncovered clues to the location of the Ark of Truth, a powerful Ancient device that has the ability to convince people the "truth" of what was programmed in it. The team went to the ruins of Dakara to search it, but the Ori Army, led by Vala Mal Doran's husband, Tomin arrived. They failed in their attempts to hold them off, but anticipating a Prior would support them, SG-1 activated a Prior disruptor; Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell managed to kill the Prior, and the soldiers surrendered. After returning to Earth, they explained to Tomin that the Ori were destroyed by the Sangraal and they were searching for the Ark because Daniel had a vision of a mountain exploding that he believed was a residual memory of Merlin's. Tomin directed them to the passage of the Book of Origin about Ortus Mallum and Daniel realizes that the Ark may be in the Alteran Home Galaxy. SG-1 and Tomin took the Odyssey through the Supergate and there Vala, Daniel and Tomin met with Hertis, a member of the Anti-Ori underground. He explained that the Fires of Celestis have gone out and that Ortus Mallum is located on the planet Celestis. Once at Celestis, SG-1 beamed to the surface and began searching. After Mitchell and Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter were called back to the ship to deal with James Marrick, Daniel had another vision and they discovered an entrance to an underground tunnel. They enter the tunnel and locate the Ark. Once back on the surface, they are attacked by Ori soldiers. After he is shot in the back, the rest of the team are captured and brought to the City of Celestis. After waking up a short time later, he began to walk the long journey to the city. After reaching the Plains of Celestis, he passed out again. Luckily, Morgan Le Fay was able to use her ascended powers to heal his wound and he continued to the city. Once inside, he disguised himself as a Prior and released Daniel from his cells and they meet up with Vala and Tomin. After Vala was shown by Morgan the symbols necessary to activate the Ark, she took them to the Ark. Vala distracted Adria, allowing Daniel to activate the Ark and he shot the table to allow the Ark to fall to the floor in view of the Doci. Adria was then weak enough for Morgan to attack and destroy her. In the end, with the Ori threat over, he joined a mission to P3K-546.
He later told Colonel Samantha Carter farewell and good luck for her new position as the leader of Atlantis, remarking that "undomesticated equines" could not stop him from visiting.
Colonel Samantha Carter requested that he come to Atlantis to teach Ronon Dex how to handle the International Oversight Advisory. On his visit there, they engaged in a sparring match, where it was proven that they are an equal match, which is another demonstration of Teal'c's incredible strength, agility, durability and warrior skills. Even though he's over 160 years old (112 if not for his 50 years in the time dilation field), which is well beyond even a Jaffa's prime age, Ronon, who was at his prime, could not find an opening or advantage when fighting with weapons or in hand-to-hand combat, which seemed to frustrate him since he had never met someone as tough as Teal'c before. He teamed up with Ronon to prevent the Wraith from taking control of the Midway space station and reaching Earth. He was also fed upon by a Wraith, though Ronon managed to kill it before it had caused any noticeable aging. He also had an interest in the firepower of Ronon's particle magnum and asked where he could get one. The two, while initially not getting along, bonded over killing the Wraith and became friends and this resulted in Ronon finally accepting Teal'c's help in dealing with the IOA.
For the rest of the year, Teal'c spent his time with SG-1 to capture the remaining Ba'al clones and fight against other foes while Colonel Samantha Carter was leading the Atlantis expedition. After capturing the final Ba'al clone, Teal'c attended the Extraction Ceremony on the Tok'ra homeworld with Major General Jack O'Neill and the rest of SG-1. The ceremony went ahead and the final Ba'al clone was killed. Vala Mal Doran stayed behind to help Ba'al's host Aziru cope with the extraction because she knew what he was going through as a former host herself. He and the rest of the team went to lunch, which O'Neill paid for.
When Atlantis was discovered to be coming under attack from Queen Death, SG-1 traveled to the city to aid in the battle. Teal'c joined Mitchell as an F-302 pilot for the George Hammond during the battle and survived.
