Dr. Daniel Jackson

An Egyptologist and linguist whose radical theories about the pyramids got him laughed out of academia, Daniel is recruited to decode the alien Stargate and joins the first mission through it. Idealistic and gentle, he's more interested in understanding other cultures than conquering them, and he talks his way through problems soldiers would shoot their way through.

He's the show's conscience, the one who asks whether they should before whether they can, and Michael Shanks plays that decency without ever making it dull. Daniel's academic passion becomes real stakes — every ruin and inscription might be the difference between first contact and disaster, and he treats it that way.