"Many believe he was a wizard of darkness. He may have tried to do good, but there was always potential for great mischief in his heart." ―Antonius[src]

Merlin, or originally Myrddin, birth name Moros, was an Ancient who lived in Atlantis and later with King Arthur and the knights of the round table, and the one that created the Sangraal.

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Biography Edit

Background information Edit

When Merlin lived in Atlantis, he was known as Moros and served as a High Councilor of the Council of Atlantis during the war with the Wraiths. When Dr. Elizabeth Weir was sent back in time 10,000 years, Moros refused to allow her to use Janus' illegal technologies to return to her time, for fear of altering the timeline. He strongly chastised Janus for conducting the experiments with time travel technologies to begin with. He gave the final order to the Ancients to evacuate to Earth when a Wraith fleet approached Lantea. (SGA: "Before I Sleep")

Upon arriving at Earth, Moros secluded himself in meditation, and eventually ascended. While ascended, however, he came to the conclusion that the Ori were too great a threat to ignore. He descended himself, while retaining all his ascended knowledge and granting himself many near ascension abilities. While on Earth, he entrusted his secrets to King Arthur and some of his noble men. They came to call him Myrddin, while "Merlin" is a later variant of the name. He built the Avalon cavern beneath Glastonbury Tor where he hid many treasures as well and equipped with tests to determine worthiness and a ring transporter for access. (SG1: "Avalon, Part 1", "The Pegasus Project")

On Earth, Merlin used his phase-shifting device to hide his work on an anti-Ori weapon later called the Sangraal from the Others. Fearing his building of a weapon capable of destroying Ascended beings could be used against them, the Others sent his old rival Ganos Lal, later known as Morgan Le Fay to watch over and stop him if necessary. Eventually, Merlin completed the weapon and moved it to Camelot. At some point, Morgan destroyed the weapon but came to realize Merlin was right and captured him instead of killing him. In case the Ori ever became a threat in the future, Morgan put Merlin in stasis in a secret planetary circuit so he could one day rebuild the weapon if it ever became necessary. (SG1: "Arthur's Mantle", "The Quest, Part 2", Stargate: The Ark of Truth)

2005 Edit

Vala Mal Doran stole a tablet written in Ancient code. The tablet told of an incredible treasure hidden on Earth and the man who carved the tablet was named Myrddin. This Myrddin was found in the list of names of the Ancients who returned from Atlantis to Earth more than 10,000 years ago to escape from the Wraith. Myrddin, Dr. Daniel Jackson discovers, is a name variant of Merlin from the legend of King Arthur.

They localized where the treasure might be located, at the Glastonbury Tor and the Isle of Avalon. With help of the Asgard sensors on the Prometheus and the Transportation rings, Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell, Daniel, Teal'c and Vala came into a large cavern and were shortly thereafter faced with a Sword in the stone and a holographic image of Merlin. The hologram gave his message, addressed to the Knights of the Round Table, telling them that they would have to prove they had truth of spirit and wealth of knowledge in order to obtain the treasures hidden in the underworld, the storehouse of riches of Ambrosius Aurelianus, the name attributed to King Arthur in some versions of Arthurian legend. (SG1: "Avalon, Part 1")

2006 Edit

It was several months later, that Stargate Command learned the purpose of the vault. Merlin was hiding his research of the Sangraal, the weapon designed to negate the power of an Ascended being. To hide his research from both the Ancients and the Ori, Merlin shifted himself into another dimension using Arthur's Mantle, and continued his research on Camelot. Ganos managed to steal the device, and hid it on a planet whose Stargate address was composed of three other planet addresses: Castiana, Sahal, and Vagonbrei. (SG1: "Arthur's Mantle", "Camelot", "The Quest, Part 1")

2007 Edit

Later however, it was learned that Morgan Le Fay had destroyed the Sangraal, and put Merlin in stasis. One thousand years later, Merlin was discovered by SG-1, who awoke him. He agreed to create another Sangraal, but his body had deteriorated too much while in stasis. Knowing that he didn't have enough time, Merlin downloaded his mind into one of the Ancients' repositories of knowledge, hoping one of the SG-1 team would use it, which Dr. Daniel Jackson did. Thus Merlin passed, having lived four separate lifetimes in Atlantis, on Earth, on the higher planes, and in Arthur's court commenting that throughout his lifetimes, there had never been enough time. (SG1: "The Quest, Part 2")

However, Merlin lived on in Daniel's mind. After Daniel was captured with the Sangraal, Merlin was able to protect Daniel from Adria's influence. He and Daniel concocted a plan to send the Sangraal through the Supergate to the Ori galaxy, once SG-1 had deactivated the wormhole blocking the Supergate. Merlin sacrificed himself to give Daniel the strength to activate the Supergate. Although Merlin had the ability to take control of Daniel's body, he mostly let Daniel remain in control while he simply used his presence to protect Daniel and re-build the weapon. He only took control once or twice to convince SG-1 of the truth. He died when the biological fail safe he installed converted Daniel back to his original state, but not until after Daniel sent an Ori warship with the activated weapon on board through the Supergate. Daniel later confirmed to SG-1 and Jack O'Neill that Merlin was gone, stating that Merlin had sacrificed himself to ensure their plan's success. Though they did not know whether or not it worked at the time, Merlin and Daniel's efforts had succeeded in destroying the Ori. (SG1: "The Shroud", "The Ark of Truth")

Several months later, Daniel began to get dreams that pointed to the Ark of Truth that featured Merlin in them. He believed that they were memories Merlin left behind to point him to the Ark. While on a planet in the Alteran Home Galaxy, he saw a vision of Merlin that caused him to realize they were on the right track and another vision of Merlin led him to the resting place of the Ark. Merlin appeared to him again when he was depressed from being tortured, appearing to be an Ascended Being, but this caused Daniel to realize the truth as Merlin had died and not Ascended: it was Morgan Le Fay, disguising herself as Merlin to secretly help them without them realizing it. Using the image of Merlin, Morgan had been guiding them so that the Others wouldn't interfere. She explained that while she had at one time been at odds with Merlin over the Ori, she had come to believe her old rival was right and did what she could to help him finish his work. With the help of Morgan, SG-1 was able to finish Merlin's work and defeat the Ori once and for all. The last of the Ori, Adria, was defeated when Morgan sacrificed herself to engage Adria in an eternal battle. With the Ark of Truth, SG-1 were able to reveal the truth about the Ori to their followers and end their crusade. (Stargate: The Ark of Truth)

Appearances Edit

Behind the scenes Edit

Matthew Walker previously played Roham in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Touchstone".

episode "Touchstone". Before he was called Merlin, he was named Moros, who in Greek mythology was the primordial god of doom and destruction.

Daniel Jackson's pronunciation of "Myrddin" is inaccurate. The "y" vowel is pronounced as "uh" and the "dd" is a single letter in the Welsh alphabet and is pronounced "th" as in "this". Thus the correct pronunciation is "Mur-Thin" not "Mir-Din".