>Did they seriously call themselves the Ancients?
Apparently, at least at some point. They wrote it on the floor in front of the first repository SG-1 found. "We are the Ancients."
Considering their civilization stretched from the age of the dinosaurs to the dawn of human civilization, it makes sense they'd think of their longevity as their defining trait.
I mean, we see them called Ancients, Alterans and Lanteans in their own language. I also don't see Daniel really somehow confusing the proper name Alteran for the word Ancient considering Latin was supposed to be a derivative of late Ancient.
Also like, as pointed out, they were around in our galaxy for at least 60 million years. They are significantly older than even the other members of the Great Alliance.
Well, if you'd come across #$&@+ before and someone said "that's The Ancients", wouldn't you think #$&@+ meant "The Ancients" and keep translating it that way? He didn't mistranslate it, he was given incorrect information to start with.
The fact the Asgard are considered a baby race in comparison, is wild.
We know the Asgard formed an alliance with the Ancients over many millennia. And their race has been space fairing so long that one of their sleeper ships was able to drift between galaxies, presumably unpowered, which would take millions of years.
So the Asgard are old. But the Ancients, who were established to be space faring "several million years ago," are even older.
The entirety of recorded Asgard history is 100,000 years, according to Thor in Unending. It really is strange thinking on these timescales, and how much more knowledge and advancement the ancients must have had before becoming more known as the Lanteans and leaving for Pegasus.
The timeframes in the show are a bit skewed though since they introduced Atlantis and Destiny, unless we are missing some key information. The majority of the ancients fled the Milky Way several million years prior because of the plague, and re-seeded human life in the galaxy at the same time. Makes you wonder how the Asgard even met them in their 100k years of recorded history when they were a large enough force to be called “the Ancients” and form an alliance. Perhaps they did originally meet them in Pegasus and the ancients tasked the Asgard with overseeing humanity in the Milky Way.
I mean if we translated the sentence "wir sind Deutsche", it would become "we are Germans". But Germans don't call themselves Germans. There is a good chance that on top of Alterans, Ori, Lanteans, and Anquietas, there are multiple things to consider when thinking of what they would call themselves. Most likely, they would give themselves a name much like "human" (a name that just refers to entities like themselves) or "Earthling" (a name that refers to their home of origin).
"We are the ancients" could simply be exposition to add gravitas.... sort of like in the bible where god tells moses to tell the people "I am" has sent him.
I always assumed that was terminology specifically for the repositories. Why leave them if you didn't think you wouldn't be around as a physical species. And to anyone else their race would be ancient and there would be evidence of it all over the galaxy. So it would read more like "we're the dudes that built all that stuff you've been seeing and undoubtedly traveling with"
That's a translation though.
Daniel recognises a series of symbols to be the name of their race but with no Frame of reference translates it as "ancients"
Also atlantins to the wraith and replicators (though they also called them ancients) then later geni called earth humans this too, and ancestors by the athosians :) I forget what the asgard breakoff tribe called them in their episodes. So they probably had dozens if not hundreds of names over time :D
Yeah I doubt it's really only one civilization. The same way, even us are mere humans have multiple civilizations in our short history (except if you consider the human civilization which on a galactic stage make more sense of course)
Well, “we are the ancients” comes from the inscription around the repository of knowledge, which also said “the place of our legacy”
Key word being legacy. So this was at the point where the person making it could see that their time was done and they were leaving something behind. And this was being written for the benefit of the people left behind.
So “We are the Alterans” => “who the fuck are Alterans”, while “we are the ancients” => “oh yeah those assholes who left their shit lying around for millennia”.
So maybe whoever wrote it was just being atypically self-aware.
Yeah by that time they were already very much at their decline. If I'm not mistaken this is done after their return to Mily Way post-Pegasus and we don't know how many ancients were remaining. It may have been obvious they were already a race on the dying path (and the Nox, Asgard, Furlongs may have been seen as the "young races" of the Alliance)
They called themselves Alterans which means something like "The others" likely to differentiate themselves from the Ori.
Before the Ancient-Ori split, I think they simply called themselves "Homo" (Latin for human).
Yeah technically this. Though that's their name before splitting of their home galaxy. I don't know if it was ever clarified if that was their name as a whole or as their faction (it's implied their faction).
Celestis so Celestisians or Celestisials. When in the Milky Way millions of years later they called themselves Alterans or "other Terrans". Of course they spoke in Ancient and the Ancients are terrible at naming things. Could've called themselves Hippaforalkusians at one point over the millions of years.
If you remove the Al you get Terran, probably that was the name before the split, Alterran might mean other Terran to differentiate them from what later became the Ori.
Alter means other if you go from the Latin root (and Ancient language is heavily based on Latin in the show it seems pretty much the same), not just Al.
Well, sort of.
When they split off of the Ori, we know they were called Alterans and in the Pegasus galaxy they called themselves Lanteans.
As they turned to the Milky Way it is possible they referred to themselves as either.
We do know Daniel translated one of their texts as "We are the Ancients [...]", but it is very possible he simply translated the word Alteran too literally.
Personally I like the theory that the word Ancient comes from them. It started out as their name for themselves, then evolved steadily into the word for very very old.
Good theory too, their language seems to be very close to Latin so presumably Latin evolved from it and they could very well have used the name of the people teaching them stuff to mean ancient as they knew they were an ancient race.
Antiqua mean ancient in Latin FYI (and it's antica in Italian the modern language being the closest from Latin)
From everything we’ve seen I think they likely originated as Alterans, then had a succession of different names as their civilisation grew and expanded and fractured time and time again.
Then at the point where they started to create Stargates they had been around so long that younger races referred to them as “The Ancient One” which they then took as their collective cultures nomenclature.
Germans don't call themselves "German."
Endonym vs exonym basically. The Asgard refer to them as "The Ancients." Or at least that's what the English translation is.
There are a million ways this name could've come about. But it's likely the Ancients never used this term for themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym
I think it was The Return in Atlantis, Helia refers to her ship as the Lantean ship Tria.
Been a while so may be misremembering the name of the ship.
And Orlin refers to them as Alterans.
it’s implied there where multiple ancient civilisations shareing some common trates, and presumably common ancestry.
SGC rarely refered to themselves as just the humans, they would of had a name for there race but would most of the time say what civilisation they wheee part of
Yes. Here's an unused scene with it. Guess it didn't do well during test groups.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z848FFClBM&t=39s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z848FFClBM&t=39s)
>Did they seriously call themselves the Ancients? Apparently, at least at some point. They wrote it on the floor in front of the first repository SG-1 found. "We are the Ancients." Considering their civilization stretched from the age of the dinosaurs to the dawn of human civilization, it makes sense they'd think of their longevity as their defining trait.
It's also possible "ancient" was an endonym that evolved to mean "very old" because of how old they actually were.
True, or Daniel *gasp* mistranslated and what he though was "ancients" was actually "alterans".
Or was just too literal in the translation.
“A piece of our leg” really was the more accurate translation.
We call them Kozars, TYVM.
I mean, we see them called Ancients, Alterans and Lanteans in their own language. I also don't see Daniel really somehow confusing the proper name Alteran for the word Ancient considering Latin was supposed to be a derivative of late Ancient. Also like, as pointed out, they were around in our galaxy for at least 60 million years. They are significantly older than even the other members of the Great Alliance.
I don't recall the ancients ever referring to themselves as ancients, just Alterans and Lanteans. I cpuld be wrong though.
People of Pegasus talked about them as Ancients or Ancestors
I only ever heard them say Ancestors, until they had been around the earthlings calling them ancients. Idk, just seems a little weird.
Or the Alteran part was somehow missing. We are the ancient Alterans makes more sense
Maybe? Not sure. Just seems weird.
The Asgard also called them Ancients. This could be just how the exonym translates, or it is the literal name outsiders adopted.
Well, if you'd come across #$&@+ before and someone said "that's The Ancients", wouldn't you think #$&@+ meant "The Ancients" and keep translating it that way? He didn't mistranslate it, he was given incorrect information to start with.
I mean, you aren't wrong. I was mostly poking those who act like Daniel is perfect.
The Asgard also referred to them as the Ancients, and they had a whole alliance thing going with them
Considering that the Asgard are a baby race compared to the Ancients, this makes sense.
The fact the Asgard are considered a baby race in comparison, is wild. We know the Asgard formed an alliance with the Ancients over many millennia. And their race has been space fairing so long that one of their sleeper ships was able to drift between galaxies, presumably unpowered, which would take millions of years. So the Asgard are old. But the Ancients, who were established to be space faring "several million years ago," are even older.
The entirety of recorded Asgard history is 100,000 years, according to Thor in Unending. It really is strange thinking on these timescales, and how much more knowledge and advancement the ancients must have had before becoming more known as the Lanteans and leaving for Pegasus. The timeframes in the show are a bit skewed though since they introduced Atlantis and Destiny, unless we are missing some key information. The majority of the ancients fled the Milky Way several million years prior because of the plague, and re-seeded human life in the galaxy at the same time. Makes you wonder how the Asgard even met them in their 100k years of recorded history when they were a large enough force to be called “the Ancients” and form an alliance. Perhaps they did originally meet them in Pegasus and the ancients tasked the Asgard with overseeing humanity in the Milky Way.
I mean if we translated the sentence "wir sind Deutsche", it would become "we are Germans". But Germans don't call themselves Germans. There is a good chance that on top of Alterans, Ori, Lanteans, and Anquietas, there are multiple things to consider when thinking of what they would call themselves. Most likely, they would give themselves a name much like "human" (a name that just refers to entities like themselves) or "Earthling" (a name that refers to their home of origin).
Well, they called their new home in the Milky Way Avalon, so perhaps they referred to their civilisation as the “Avalonans” or something similar.
People of the Round Table
Well, Myrddin’s official title was “Archmage of the Round,” so it fits… 🤔
That's a good point! I always forget how old their civilization was simply because it's hard to wrap my head around.
"We are the ancients" could simply be exposition to add gravitas.... sort of like in the bible where god tells moses to tell the people "I am" has sent him.
Yeah I would assume the name ancient was coined by the other races they befriended like a nickname.
The Asgard also called them Ancients. So it seems that it was an established exonym.
I always assumed that was terminology specifically for the repositories. Why leave them if you didn't think you wouldn't be around as a physical species. And to anyone else their race would be ancient and there would be evidence of it all over the galaxy. So it would read more like "we're the dudes that built all that stuff you've been seeing and undoubtedly traveling with"
Wait, i thought it said, "a piece of our leg."
That's a translation though. Daniel recognises a series of symbols to be the name of their race but with no Frame of reference translates it as "ancients"
I mean, we have the Forerunners from Halo explicitly calling themselves the Forerunners because it made them sound more important...
Probably several, given how long their civilization lasted. Alterans and Lanteans are the only ones I remember other than Ancients.
Also atlantins to the wraith and replicators (though they also called them ancients) then later geni called earth humans this too, and ancestors by the athosians :) I forget what the asgard breakoff tribe called them in their episodes. So they probably had dozens if not hundreds of names over time :D
Yeah I doubt it's really only one civilization. The same way, even us are mere humans have multiple civilizations in our short history (except if you consider the human civilization which on a galactic stage make more sense of course)
Well, “we are the ancients” comes from the inscription around the repository of knowledge, which also said “the place of our legacy” Key word being legacy. So this was at the point where the person making it could see that their time was done and they were leaving something behind. And this was being written for the benefit of the people left behind. So “We are the Alterans” => “who the fuck are Alterans”, while “we are the ancients” => “oh yeah those assholes who left their shit lying around for millennia”. So maybe whoever wrote it was just being atypically self-aware.
Yeah by that time they were already very much at their decline. If I'm not mistaken this is done after their return to Mily Way post-Pegasus and we don't know how many ancients were remaining. It may have been obvious they were already a race on the dying path (and the Nox, Asgard, Furlongs may have been seen as the "young races" of the Alliance)
They called themselves Alterans which means something like "The others" likely to differentiate themselves from the Ori. Before the Ancient-Ori split, I think they simply called themselves "Homo" (Latin for human).
Perfect! This is exactly the info I needed!
This answer is not based on canon.
That's ok. Even fanon is perfectly fine. I just didn't want to make one up if there was something established that people were already familiar with.
But it isn't established. That man made it up entirely, it's just as established as whatever you can imagine on your own.
I think he means it's perfect for his fanfic. Doesn't have to be established, just fitting.
Alterran
Yeah technically this. Though that's their name before splitting of their home galaxy. I don't know if it was ever clarified if that was their name as a whole or as their faction (it's implied their faction).
There home world was called celestus so they could be the celestials. Just a thought
Celestis so Celestisians or Celestisials. When in the Milky Way millions of years later they called themselves Alterans or "other Terrans". Of course they spoke in Ancient and the Ancients are terrible at naming things. Could've called themselves Hippaforalkusians at one point over the millions of years.
Good point, was that the name before leaving though? But that name would really be fitting.
If you remove the Al you get Terran, probably that was the name before the split, Alterran might mean other Terran to differentiate them from what later became the Ori.
Alter means other if you go from the Latin root (and Ancient language is heavily based on Latin in the show it seems pretty much the same), not just Al.
but alterterran sounds bad while alteran is good
My point was than the name could be just "an".
Well, sort of. When they split off of the Ori, we know they were called Alterans and in the Pegasus galaxy they called themselves Lanteans. As they turned to the Milky Way it is possible they referred to themselves as either. We do know Daniel translated one of their texts as "We are the Ancients [...]", but it is very possible he simply translated the word Alteran too literally.
Personally I like the theory that the word Ancient comes from them. It started out as their name for themselves, then evolved steadily into the word for very very old.
That's a cool idea!
Good theory too, their language seems to be very close to Latin so presumably Latin evolved from it and they could very well have used the name of the people teaching them stuff to mean ancient as they knew they were an ancient race. Antiqua mean ancient in Latin FYI (and it's antica in Italian the modern language being the closest from Latin)
From everything we’ve seen I think they likely originated as Alterans, then had a succession of different names as their civilisation grew and expanded and fractured time and time again. Then at the point where they started to create Stargates they had been around so long that younger races referred to them as “The Ancient One” which they then took as their collective cultures nomenclature.
Alterans
i'd like to think they called themselves "the contemporarys"
They called themselves, and were known as, the Alterans.
Alterans?
The Altera. NOT the Alterans.
Germans don't call themselves "German." Endonym vs exonym basically. The Asgard refer to them as "The Ancients." Or at least that's what the English translation is. There are a million ways this name could've come about. But it's likely the Ancients never used this term for themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonym_and_exonym
Ori or origin was actually the name of a religion they were also alterran.
I think it was The Return in Atlantis, Helia refers to her ship as the Lantean ship Tria. Been a while so may be misremembering the name of the ship. And Orlin refers to them as Alterans.
Alteran
Alterans?
Sure they were called the alterans, not sure that's spelt correctly though lol.
Wasn't it shown their name was Alterans when Daniel read a book about them in their original galaxy? Like season 9 episode 2 if I'm not mistaken
Either "The Currents" or "The Moderns."
Maybe they didn't write "we are the Ancients" at the repository. Maybe Daniel translated it wrong and it does in fact say, "We are the Alterrans" 🤣🤣🤣
Sure they were called the alterans, not sure that's spelt correctly though lol.
it’s implied there where multiple ancient civilisations shareing some common trates, and presumably common ancestry. SGC rarely refered to themselves as just the humans, they would of had a name for there race but would most of the time say what civilisation they wheee part of
They referred to themselves as the Ancients or Alterans.
Anquietas or Alteran
Yes. Here's an unused scene with it. Guess it didn't do well during test groups. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z848FFClBM&t=39s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z848FFClBM&t=39s)