Holy Shit! (HUGE SPOILERS FOR SG-1 SEASON TEN)

[Zac Naloen]

Also, there are differences in the general attitude of the two. The Orii send followers on crusades against unbelievers the Altarens believe people should have free will.

[NecronLord]

That would be pretty fucking weak, considering how many horrible, genocidal things we've seen the Orii do and how the Ancients DON'T do that.

As I said, waaay back, it'd be far more interesting if the difference between the Orii was more philosophical than 'Orii are teh evil' and that the Orii were simply more concerned with mortal affairs.

In esscence, I would have, from the point of Avalon Part Two, spun off thus:

The Ascended and the Orii are, like real people, neither good nor bad. But the Orii despise the Ascended for their willingness to refuse to interfere in the lives of 'lowers.' The Orii, in comparison, are fairly close to all-loving, they can't comprehend why anyone would allow others to die (this could be the philosophical result of the plague on the Orii), and have interfered pretty heavily in their own galaxy to prevent any actual deaths - everyone ascends on death, either due to their own force of will, or because the Orii help them. This collective effort drains the Orii, and leaves them weaker than the Ascended, preventing the Orii expanding their influence through direct force - if they did that, they'd have to stop watching over their flock and snuffing out every trace of disease or disaster, and providing a universal afterlife, so instead, they send their Priors to spread the word (which would make them more powerful, and allow them to 'help' others who had previously been ignorant of them) to those peoples the Ascended created.

On the other hand, this prevents any real progress in their galaxy, and their followers (Priors et al), as tends to happen in any religion are a little over-zealous.

The whole 'burning people' thing is something that mortals made up, and what the administrator says about "Fear not…for the Ori see all…outside and within. If your heart is pure and your devotion unwavering they will protect you." Is the normal course of things - when they try to burn someone, the Orii just ascend them, or alternately snuff out the flames.

On the other hand, the Ascended, both don't want to spend the time and effort clearing up their messes, and belive strongly that the only people who deserve immortality are those who can get there on their own, and thus have their rules of non-interferenace. The Ascended, being a more stagnant (but more powerful) group, don't give a flying fuck (on the whole) about 'lowers' and are quite willing to let assholes like Anubis and the Wraith rampage around - The Orii would have just flat out killed them both.

Of course, this would make the Orii out to be good guys... But the thing is, they're not able to influence things outside their own galaxy. When the Priors journey to the Milky Way to gather converts, the Orii don't spare the people these loons would otherwise kill, and when these immensely powerful loons are out of the direct supervision of the Orii, they tend to get frustrated and blast cities of unbelievers...

Of course, that's not the way they went...

[Cao Cao]

Unfortunately the chance for rounding out the Ori from anything other than evil Goa'uld Mk IIs totally evaporated IMO when they built large ships o' doom and sent them screaming into the Milky Way in full killbot mode.

[NecronLord]

Unfortunately the chance for rounding out the Ori from anything other than evil Goa'uld Mk IIs totally evaporated IMO when they built large ships o' doom and sent them screaming into the Milky Way in full killbot mode.

Actually, I think it was when Docii, when possessed, said "FIRED UP DOCI: Those who abandoned the path are evil."

Though one could just interpret that to be the Orii declaring that the Alterans themselves are evil, not necesserily the unbelievers. But to round them out, you'd need them to be ignorant of the doings of their followers, and that's a stretch.

The ships don't mean much, they're crewed by mortals (as far as we know) after all.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Arent the Ascended kind of like the Biblical God ("I love you so much i wont force you to do good things or protect you from bad things.") while the Ori are like the Devil ("Join us or die. Pick one. Now.")? I thought that was the implication.

[Cao Cao]

Unfortunately the chance for rounding out the Ori from anything other than evil Goa'uld Mk IIs totally evaporated IMO when they built large ships o' doom and sent them screaming into the Milky Way in full killbot mode.

Actually, I think it was when Docii, when possessed, said "FIRED UP DOCI: Those who abandoned the path are evil."

Though one could just interpret that to be the Orii declaring that the Alterans themselves are evil, not necesserily the unbelievers. But to round them out, you'd need them to be ignorant of the doings of their followers, and that's a stretch.

Well not entirely. You could have them be so zealous that they're convinced that the Alterans and their "children" are corrupt and evil leading to a "means to an end" philosophy to justify the deaths they're causing. They don't have to be saints to not be evil.
What we have on the other hand seem to be 100% evil soul sucking slave masters.

The ships don't mean much, they're crewed by mortals (as far as we know) after all.

True, but they must've been commissioned and designed by the Ori and built on their order and their intended use doesn't look like anything other than demolishing all ships in their path and landing armies.

[Cao Cao]

Arent the Ascended kind of like the Biblical God ("I love you so much i wont force you to do good things or protect you from bad things.") while the Ori are like the Devil ("Join us or die. Pick one. Now.")? I thought that was the implication.

If anything, the Ori are more like the Old Testament God. To me anyway.

[Cao Cao]

Apologies for the triple post, but I just wanted to point out that what I meant was that the chance for the Ori to be rounded out into non-evil antagonists was IMO completely gone in "Camelot", but it has of course been on a steady decline since "Avalon", with each Ori episode showing more and more acts of pure Ori evil.
I just worded it poorly.

[NecronLord]

You never know. They might yet pull out a decent reversal. For all we know, Orlin's memories were altered greatly when he descended.

[Cao Cao]

You never know. They might yet pull out a decent reversal. For all we know, Orlin's memories were altered greatly when he descended.

Maybe the evil Alteran cabal implanted false memories on his way down.
Hey, if they can pull off this kind of reversal and make it look good, I'll be glued to my seat.

[NecronLord]

It would be nifty to see Skara reappear:

"You want to fight priors Daniel?" *Waves hand and ubers him up in a similar manner*

[Zac Naloen]

It would be nifty to see Skara reappear:

"You want to fight priors Daniel?" *Waves hand and ubers him up in a similar manner*

Thats what i was thinking, its more of an ascended fight fire with fire plot than anything else. I hope. I hope Daniel isn't leaving again, he's one of the characters who kept the show good last season

[Camel]

I don't see why the ascended alterans don't just create their own priors and fight back. I mean, the Ori are just gaining strength to destroy them eventually. That's the ultimate goal isn't it?
Regardless of their restraint in dealing with mortals; they must know that their own survival will depend on their intervention eventually.
Maybe Daniel Jackson is one of the alterans "priors". Though, that still doesn't explain why he would be spewing Ori garbage.

I hope Daniel isn't leaving again, he's one of the characters who kept the show good last season

I miss O'Neill. Cam Mitchell is a good substitute. They have largely the same personality character wise.

[Jack Bauer]

On a side note, have the creators done a Goa'uld or Ascended version of Yahweh yet? Or would that upset all the Christians?

[Imperial Overlord]

On a side note, have the creators done a Goa'uld or Ascended version of Yahweh yet? Or would that upset all the Christians?

They've staid away from that, although they did have Sokar do a nice Satan routine.

[Cao Cao]

On a side note, have the creators done a Goa'uld or Ascended version of Yahweh yet? Or would that upset all the Christians?

They've staid away from that, although they did have Sokar do a nice Satan routine.

They even went so far as to have Teal'c say that having read the Bible, there's no way somebody as kind and compassionate as the Christian God could be a Goa'uld when SG-1 visited that "Christian" planet.
Somebody give Teal'c a copy of the Old Testament! Stat!

[Imperial Overlord]

They even went so far as to have Teal'c say that having read the Bible, there's no way somebody as kind and compassionate as the Christian God could be a Goa'uld when SG-1 visited that "Christian" planet.
Somebody give Teal'c a copy of the Old Testament! Stat!

I don't know about that. Even for Goa'uld, burning someone to death for using the wrong incense is pretty petty . . .

[Darth Yoshi]

Well, we could simply interpret that to mean that the Goa'uld were that much worse than Yahweh.

Priorized Daniel definitely has potential, but yeah, I'm worried they'll fuck this up.