Cooper: Morgan Le Fay had a mission

Beware of MAJOR SPOILERS for Stargate: The Ark of Truth in the report below.

The powerful, ascended being Morgan Le Fay came to the Ori home galaxy with a mission from the Ancients in the new movie Stargate: The Ark of Truth, writer-director Robert C. Cooper told GateWorld in an exclusive, in-depth interview this week.

“I think she was very conflicted about what to do,” Cooper said. “The last time she tried to help Daniel in a ‘guardian angel’ capacity, in some type of interference, the other Ancients stopped her. She was pulled out of the Atlantis [hologram] room in ‘The Pegasus Project.’ And I think that she has been following the team and walking the fine line of how to help us without breaking those rules again.”

In that episode, Morgan (played by actress Sarah Strange) posed as a hologram to give Daniel and Vala information about where to find Merlin’s weapon, capable of destroying the Ori — themselves evil, ascended beings. But because the Ancients forbid any interference with the “lower plane” on which humans live, Morgan was stopped — and became an outcast.

“Much the way that when Daniel was ascended and he appeared to O’Neill in the elevator in ‘Full Circle’ to tell him about the device that Anubis was essentially gathering to make him powerful … I think Morgan was in that pretty much exact same position, where she felt like she wanted to help us, felt that her help was justified, but wasn’t entirely sure how far she could go. And [she] also realized that when she did follow the Odyssey through [the Supergate], and was doing what she could to try and help us, she also knew that Adria was in fact too powerful for her to face head-on. And so the trick became how to equalize that scenario so that she could take her on one-on-one.”

Morgan tells Daniel that she cannot take Adria by herself. From Stargate: The Ark of Truth

“The one thing the Ancients had never really taken issue with was one Ancient, one ascended being essentially taking issue with one other ascended being. That was something we had seen in ‘Threads,’ where Oma had been responsible for the fact that Anubis had ascended and she needed to take responsibility for that. And so when they engaged in battle they basically got locked in this never-ending conflict.”

In facing Adria head-to-head, Cooper said, Morgan was assuming the same fate as Oma Desala — not mutually-assured destruction with her foe, but a never-ending battle that will keep Adria occupied for all time. And in Morgan’s case, the Ancients were entirely complicit.

“I think that was basically the bargain that Morgan made with the other Ancients,” Cooper said. “If you want to think that there is a council of Ancients out there, she went before them and said, ‘Look, you guys don’t want to get involved. I do. I want to take this responsibility. This one is on me.’ She said, ‘Let me take this on myself.’ Only when she looked at the situation, she knew she could never win unless we helped in some respect in terms of leveling the playing field for her.”

The rest of the Ancients refused to get involved, even though the Ori had targeted them — and Earth had saved the Ancients by using Merlin’s weapon on the Ori (“The Shroud”). But by allowing Morgan to do what she did, the Ancients were essentially saying thank you.

With the Ori destroyed, Adria has all their power to herself now that she has ascended. From Stargate: The Ark of Truth

“This was payback,” Cooper said. “The other Ancients saying, ‘OK, fine — you go deal with this and help them out’ is I think some sort of thank you for having protected them and kept them out of an ascended being war.

“She’s been deputized by the other Ancients to go — not so much that she has been given permission, but they are kind of agreeing to look the other way. Because, in fact, what has happened is in ‘The Shroud’ we did something that ultimately ended up being for their benefit, not ours.”

Stargate: The Ark of Truth is now on DVD throughout North America, and arrives in the U.K. and Australia next month (story). Get it now at Amazon.com, and visit GateWorld’s movie guide for more!

In our exclusive interview, the writer and director of the film talks in detail about Stargate mythology, the Ori, Adria, the Replicators, and other elements from the new movie. Stay tuned for much more from Robert C. Cooper in the days ahead!