Member of the Asuran people and sympathetic voice to the ears of High Councilor Oberoth. Niam is an untraditional Asuran who, though allied with his people, believes they have become stagnant in their evolutionary path. He disagrees philosophically with Oberoth, though manages to remain as a trusted advisor.
Niam was fascinated with members of the Atlantis expedition who arrived to trade with the Asurans ten thousand years after the second siege. When he discovered they knew of ascension he gathered those of like-minded sensibility and presented Dr. Elizabeth Weir with an offer following her team's capture and imprisonment. In exchange for Dr. Rodney McKay removing a base aggression from his people's programming, which they could not do themselves, Niam and his allies would do everything in their power to make Oberoth reconsider destroying Atlantis.
Dr. Weir agreed to his offer, but along the way took advantage of McKay's discovery that he could momentarily freeze the Asurans in a feedback loop. Niam, who's programming was updating at the time, was spared this freeze. But Dr. Weir convinced him to help them escape. Niam entered access codes that permitted McKay to overload the three Zero Point Modules powering the cloned Atlantis city that they had taken into Lantean orbit, destroying the craft before it could annihilate the real Atlantis.
Niam escaped aboard a Puddle Jumper with the Atlantis team, but almost immediately the people he left behind on Asuras were aware of what he had done. They reset his personality, forcing him to strangle Dr. Weir, before he was fired upon by Colonel John Sheppard and the others and blown into space through the rear hatch of the Jumper.
PLAYED BY -
John O'Callaghan
FIRST APPEARED -
Progeny
KEY EPISODE(S) -
Progeny - Niam escorts members of the Atlantis expedition to the Asuran council, soon learning that they are aware of ascension and may help him in achieving his goals of reaching enlightenment.
