Jack O’Neill

The show has 10 seasons, 2 movies, and was a spin-off from the original, 1994 Stargate movie. This profile covers the first eight seasons of Stargate SG-1. It includes some S P O I L E R S for those seasons.

For more context, please refer to our Stargate Command article.

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Background

Powers and Abilities

O’Neill is an extremely accomplished soldier. He had two decades of covert operations experience even before joining Stargate Command and leading military and diplomatic missions across the galaxy.

Though he is a very capable combatant, he achieves his victories through sound tactics rather than being a superhumanly skilled action movie killing machine.

For example, with some time for preparation of traps around an improvised defensive emplacement, O’Neill was once able to single-handedly wipe out most of a platoon of Jaffa warriors in a matter of moments. His defense incorporated misdirection tactics such as shooting one end of a formation to herd them toward cover behind which he had already planted explosives.

Jack is a very capable leader. He is quick to inspire confidence in the people who rely on him, whether it is those under his command or those he is trying to protect. O’Neill is an excellent pilot as well, enough so to be entrusted with test piloting of experimental aircraft.

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Other assets

Due both to his extensive military career and his work with the SG-1 (which includes having saved Earth from destruction or conquest on numerous occasions), O’Neill is a highly respected hero, albeit only to those cleared to know about the Stargate. At this point, this includes most of the leaders of the major governments of Earth as well as many highly placed officials in the US government.

This gives O’Neill a lot of influence within this limited circle, though his abrasive behavior undercuts this with certain individuals.

Even if one leaves Jack’s work with the Stargate out of the equation, he established himself as an exemplary officer during his earlier conventional work, so much so that he is recognized on sight by many military officers and reporters working the Pentagon beat.

Thanks to having the rare genetic tag of the Ancients, Jack can interface with and control Ancient devices. This is not a perfect process thanks to the centuries of genetic drift between the Ancients and modern humans and sometimes has negative side-effects in the long-term.

History

Jack O’Neill was born in Chicago and raised in Minnesota. He spent his early military career engaged in cold war covert ops, including at least one commando mission in East Germany to capture a Russian agent. He also conducted operations in the Middle East that were plagued with bad luck.

On one occasion he had a bad parachute landing in Iran and could not get an extraction, so he had to spend nine days escaping over land. Another mission had O’Neill left for dead and then imprisoned by the Iraqis for four months.

O’Neill’s had married his wife Sarah prior to his imprisonment in Iraq. The thought of returning to her was his greatest motivation for escaping. Sometime after his imprisonment, the couple had their son Charlie.

Depression

The three of them enjoyed a good family life. However, Charlie died at the age of 11 after accidentally shooting himself with O’Neill’s handgun. O’Neill fell into a suicidal depression after Charlie’s death and left active service.

The US government still had need of O’Neill though. When the Stargate Program was reactivated in 1996, O’Neill was drafted back into service to provide security. O’Neill was to go through the Stargate, assess the situation, and if there was a threat destroy the gate with a nuclear bomb.

It is possible that O’Neill was entrusted with this possibly suicidal mission because his commanding officers felt his depression would lower any normal inhibitions against sacrificing his life.

Stargate Project

O’Neill’s group went through and arrived on the planet Abydos. It was inhabited by the descendants of humans from ancient Egypt who were under the dominion of the Goa’uld System Lord Ra.

O’Neill bonded with some of the youths there (particularly one named Skaara who reminded O’Neill of Charlie) and was incensed by Ra’s oppressive rule over the Abydonians.

These factors raised O’Neill out of his depression. With his sense of mission restored, O’Neill led an attack on Ra with the help of civilian archaeological advisor Daniel Jackson and used the nuclear bomb to destroy Ra’s ship, apparently killing Ra as well.

Afterward, O’Neill returned to Earth. Daniel Jackson stayed behind with his new wife, Sharé. O’Neill told his commanding officers most of what happened, though he claimed to have set the bomb to destroy the Stargate. Meanwhile, Jackson had the Abydos gate buried, which would prevent anyone from traveling through it.

Retiring again after the Abydos mission, Jack went into seclusion for the next year. During that time, he and Sarah divorced. O’Neill quit smoking and took up amateur astronomy as a hobby, perhaps inspired by his journey to Abydos.

Return to the universe

The Stargate Program was being decommissioned when the Stargate opened again. The System Lord Apophis came through the gate and had a brief skirmish with military security before leaving. O’Neill was reactivated as field commander of the newly-created Stargate Command (SGC) and went to Abydos to investigate the attacks.

There, Daniel Jackson explained that the Stargate was not just a portal between Earth and Abydos, but part of a network of a great many Stargates. This network spanned the galaxy and possibly even others. Jackson had unearthed the portal in preparation to explore these other worlds, which was why O’Neill had been able to go through.

Though Apophis had not come from Abydos as the SGC initially surmised when they thought the gate only went to Abydos, the System Lord did come to Abydos on his quest. Apophis was seeking a suitable human host for his queen and took Daniel’s wife Sharé for this purpose. He also claimed Jack’s Abydonian friend Skaara as a host for Apophis’s son.

O’Neill, Jackson, and the SGC field team followed Apophis to one of his planets. Though the group was unable to rescue Sharé or Skaara, they did save another group of captives and convinced Teal’c, Apophis’s First Prime (leader of his elite guards), to defect.

After this historic series of events, the SGC dedicated itself to exploring the worlds of the stargate network. Formal field teams were arranged, the first and foremost of which was SG-1 commanded by Jack O’Neill.

SG-1

During the next seven years under Jack’s leadership, SG-1 would be instrumental in fending off numerous attacks on Earth, killing several Goa’uld System Lords. Those were the worse losses those galaxy-spanning despots had ever suffered at the hands of others.

SG-1 also built alliances with other powerful groups such as the Tok’ra (a splinter Goa’uld faction), the Asgard (a technologically advanced race resembling the grays of UFO lore), and Jaffa rebels (warrior slaves of the Goa’uld who have broken away from the System Lords).

The greatest battle in the SGC’s history was Anubis’s attack on Earth. Anubis’s fleet was destroyed by the weapons in the recently-discovered Ancient City in Antarctica. These weapons had been activated by O’Neill using the knowledge of the Ancients, though accessing that knowledge came at the price of putting him in a coma.

He was revived by the Asgard and repaid them by providing blueprints for Ancient weapon technology that helped the Asgard in their battle with the Replicators.

After he recovered, he was offered a promotion to brigadier general and command of the SGC. He took both. Though it was a bit of a struggle at first, being completely different from his field work, O’Neill has risen to the challenge and continues to contribute his leadership and unique perspective to the SGC.

Description

O’Neill is a handsome, physically fit white male. He usually has the deep tan of an outdoorsman. Jack has a slight visual distinguishing mark, a thin 1” vertical scar running through the middle of the left eyebrow. His hair has silvered over his years with the SGC, giving him a additional air of dignity, albeit one sometimes in contrast to his behavior.

He carries himself in a very relaxed way most of the time, wearing his fatigues while on-duty on all but the most formal of occasions. While in the field, he wears a beige baseball cap and a large pair of sunglasses regardless of whatever other attire he is garbed in. O’Neill typically speaks in a near-monotone, which suits his dry wit.

Personality

Daniel Jackson once summed up O’Neill as a protector, someone who feels his first responsibility is to keep others safe. O’Neill’s military career was about defending his country. Though his responsibilities have expanded, his priorities remain the same.

O’Neill considers finding new defensive technologies and alliances to be the most important goal of the SGC. While he does favor his country and has some slight lingering suspicion of the Russians left over from the cold war, O’Neill realizes that keeping Earth as a whole safe takes priority over patriotism.

Defender

This protective attitude extends directly to the people O’Neill is responsible for. He will do whatever it takes to keep them safe while getting the mission done. He will even engage in criminal activity if necessary to get a friend or ally out of trouble.

Perversely, this was one of the sources of conflict between O’Neill and scientists under his purview such as Daniel Jackson. O’Neill was less willing to risk their lives than they were and would sometimes cut short their work to keep them out of harm’s way.

O’Neill does recognize the importance of those peoples’ work, more so than ever thanks to his friendship with Daniel Jackson, and tries to balance their needs with his responsibility to keep them alive.

O’Neill will never leave someone behind if there is anything he can do to rescue them. If he cannot save them at the time he will return as soon as possible. This trait was reinforced by O’Neill’s own experience with being abandoned and becoming a POW.

Dauntless

The drive to keep others safe has given O’Neill almost-superhuman resolve in some situations. When he temporarily blended with the Tok’ra symbiote Kanan, Kanan then felt the same responsibility and went back to save his contact among the Goa’uld Baal’s forces.

When Kanan left Jack’s body rather than be caught, Jack was captured by the System Lord Baal, tortured to death and then resurrected by the Goa’uld’s sarcophagus. Rather than give up the spy Baal was seeking, Jack endured several cycles of lethal torture and resurrection before he began to show signs of cracking.

When he felt he was close to breaking, he asked Daniel Jackson (who was in his ascended state at the time) to help him die permanently rather than give Baal what he wanted.

O’Neill was fortunately rescued before he could be driven insane by the cumulative effects of his torture and the psychological damage of repeated sarcophagus use over a short time period, a rescue facilitated by Jackson.

Drastic

It is when O’Neill fails to protect someone that he comes closest to losing his self-control. When religious fanatics sabotaged a project meant to save their world, killing two SGC members in the process, O’Neill was seconds away from conducting a field execution of the man who had encouraged the fanatics before his SG-1 colleagues talked him out of it.

His friends than had to work hard to convince O’Neill not to abandon that entire planet afterward and leave them to their fate.

Dad-ish

O’Neill sees children as particularly important to safeguard. The loss of his son due in part to his own carelessness almost destroyed him before he found a mission where he could keep others safe again.

He still enjoys activities with children, so much so that the children of many of the families of the SGC such as General Hammond’s and Doctor Fraiser’s consider him an uncle. He also donates time to local schools.

He once broke regulations and caused a diplomatic incident simply to take a girl from another planet out to enjoy life as a child without the responsibilities her culture imposed upon her.

A tad juvenile

Part of O’Neill’s affinity with youths may be due to his own sometimes childlike qualities. O’Neill is easily bored and has a habit of playing with whatever odd objects he finds in his environment.

He will fidget while waiting for something to happen and has a habit of flipping his watch cover on and off (which was a particular hardship when he was once captured by Jaffa and stripped of that item: “I can’t believe they took my watch.”).

Jack often avoids reading memos and reports involving administrative and scientific issues since they’re not of great interest to him and he trusts those around him who are responsible for such things.

Competition is another area that tends to bring out O’Neill’s immature side. He was once late for a vital meeting because he was trying to finish a crossword puzzle whose solution was part of a bet with Dr. Carter. During one rescue mission, Jack ended up wrestling with his android counterpart over which of them was more skilled.

Jocular

Jack has a dry and often self-deprecating sense of humor. His jokes are often peppered with references to pop-culture icons such as The Simpsons (Jack’s favorite TV show): “Mmm… Goa’uld TV.” That same humor compels him to make sarcastic remarks toward his enemies, even when he knows he will be punished for it.

This trait might have seriously harmed his military career were it not for three factors:

• Understanding commanders such as Frank Cromwell and George Hammond.
• His assignment to covert operations where a more independent attitude is common (sometimes even encouraged).
• His status as a war hero with numerous combat ribbons and medals who has more than once helped save the entire world.

The combination of his sardonic nature and his dislike for those who put politics and self-promotion ahead of people has resulted in some ugly confrontations with various bureaucrats.

Undiplomatic

He once bluntly told a toadying general who’d temporarily taken over the SGC that “If it wasn’t for SG-1, you’d be sitting there with a snake in your head instead of your head up your ass.”

When a classified documentary of Stargate Command was being filmed, O’Neill also took the opportunity to dress down Senator Kinsey, an long-running political opponent of the SGC, on camera: “You smarmy, self-righteous, opportunistic asshole. You are nothing but a limpdick…son of a bitch.”

(According to one interview, when the Air Force Chief-of-Staff visited the set, Richard Dean Anderson asked if he was going overboard with Jack’s attitude. The CoS just laughed and said he dealt with “even bigger dicks” than Jack at the Pentagon every day.)

Science!

Because O’Neill evinces little interest in scientific pursuits and seemingly has a short attention span regarding intellectual exercises, people tend to underestimate his intelligence and knowledge.

Consequently, he occasionally surprises people by throwing out comments that indicate a much better understanding of such topics as astronomy and stargate technology than even his friends would normally expect.

At the same time, he will often cut off Carter or Jackson when they’re explaining the basis of scientific or linguistic breakthroughs. He just needs to know the final result and doesn’t really have the background to appreciate the subtleties of their discoveries anyway.

Nature boy

O’Neill is an outdoorsman and prefers taking his leave at his cabin in Minnesota, where he grew up. He often invites his friends to go fishing up in the pond next to the cabin. The pond has no fish, which gives the fishing there a meditative quality akin to the Zen practice of raking patterns in gravel.

It also suits O’Neill’s inability to simply sit still.

Humanity is a very important quality to Jack. When an android with a copy of his mind was created, both the android and Jack were upset with the idea of being a machine. Once, when Jack was gravely injured and could only be saved by temporarily blending with a Tok’ra symbiote, he almost died before finally relenting to the blending.

Even then he only agreed with the additional push that the symbiote could provide information helpful to Earth’s defense.

While this trait does tend to make Jack favor protecting humans over other species (on the rare occasions such conflicts arise), it does not keep him from appreciating the lives of aliens. He has become close friends with the Jaffa warriors Teal’c and Bra’tac and greatly values his friendship with the Asgard Supreme Commander, Thor.

Friendships

Jack’s friendships with SG-1 complement him in a variety of ways. O’Neill and Teal’c are cut from the same cloth, introspective warriors whose first duty is to protect their people. Jack also enjoys introducing Teal’c to American culture and getting Teal’c’s views on it.

Samantha Carter is greatly respected both as a soldier and a scientist, someone who can present an intellectual perspective to O’Neill. She also sometimes play the role of den mother reining in O’Neill’s occasionally immature behavior.

The relationship between Jack and Daniel is the most complex, because of they have very different interests. Furthermore, O’Neill prefers action while Daniel would rather negotiate. While O’Neill finds Daniel’s preference for diplomacy exasperating at times, he also values having that extra moral perspective.

This was most evident in Daniel’s absence after Jackson ascended. O’Neill was a little more likely to engage in questionable behavior such as betraying the Replicator Number Five to ensure the Replicators remained trapped in the Asgard’s time-field.

The private life

Off-duty, Jack is a very private person. He usually vacations at the cabin mentioned above alone or with a few close friends such as the members of SG-1. His introversion was part of what caused his divorce — after his son’s death, he cut off contact with everyone, even his wife.

He did not seek out new romantic relationships after the divorce, though he and SG-1 officer Samantha Carter had a mutual attraction, one which they could not act on due to regulations.

O’Neill had very recently started dating the CIA liaison to the SGC, Kerry Johnson, but Kerry ended it when she realized Jack loved Samantha. She even suggesting that Jack retire so regulations would no longer stand between him and Carter, pointing out that civilian status has not prevented others from continuing to contribute to the Stargate program in leadership capacities.

Quotes

“Oh, for crying out loud.” (His favorite expression of exasperation)

“Sweet.” (Or “Cool” or “Nice,” his other preferred expressions of approval)

“Hey, Reigar. You know that ’We come in peace‘ business ? Bite me.”

“Hammond is insisting that SG-1 needs a sociopolitical nerd to offset our overwhelming coolness.”

(To a nurse preparing to give O’Neill an injection in the buttocks) “Listen, really jam it in this time, okay ?”

Carter: “If we don’t make it, I won’t have any regrets. You ?”
O’Neill: “I’ll regret dying.”

K’tano: “I see you are one who speaks your mind, O’Neill.”
O’Neill: “Yes, which is why I don’t say much. ”

O’Neill: “Do you read the Bible, Teal’c ?”
Teal’c: “It is a significant part of your Western culture. Have you not read the Bible, O’Neill ?”
O’Neill: “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not all of it. Actually, I’m listening to it on tape. Don’t tell me how it ends.”

(While he and Teal’c were stuck in a time loop): “I’m telling you, Teal’c. If we don’t find a way out of this soon, I’m gonna lose it.”
(Teal’c looks at O’Neill uncomprehendingly)
“Lose it. It means, ’Go crazy.‘ ’Nuts.‘ ’Insane.‘ ’Bonzo.‘ ’No longer in possession of one’s faculties.‘ ’Three fries short of a Happy Meal !‘ ’WACKO !!‘” (While saying this O’Neill paints a smiley face on his plate with ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles and then makes a mess of it)

Jaffa: “On your knees !”
O’Neill: “Uh, actually, I’ve got this cartilage ACL thing …”
(Jaffa knocks O’Neill to his knees)
O’Neill: (Wincing) Thanks ! *That* helps…”

Her’ak: “No matter what you have endured, you have never experienced the likes of what Anubis is capable of.”
O’Neill: “You ended that sentence with a preposition. Bastard.”

O’Neill: “…And then I kind of lost my temper.”
Hammond: “What exactly does that mean ?”
Daniel: “Let’s just say he made a reference to Freyr’s mother.”

Carter: “Sir, the invisibility field must operate on—”
O’Neill: “Are you about to tell me you can make the invisible guy visible ?”
Carter: “Yes, sir.”
O’Neill: “That’s all I need.”

Jack: “I didn’t leave… because I’d have rather died myself, than lose Carter.”
Anise: “Why ?”
Jack: “Because I care about her… a lot more than I’m supposed to.”

(In response to the Goa’Uld Ba’al’s request for help) “You know that bitter taste in your throat, that’s kind of wrapped around your uvula ? That’s what’s left of your pride.”

DC Universe History

O’Neill worked in covert operations groups such as Checkmate prior to joining Stargate Command (assuming the SGC exists in one’s version of the DCU). He might have been involved in missions against Qurac during the ’80s and could have been detailed to the Suicide Squad much as Rick Flag was.

By Roy Cowan.

Source of Character: Stargate SG-1, character played by Richard Dean Anderson.

Helper(s): Sébastien Andrivet.