Stargate: Every Villain Ranked Worst To Best
1. The Ori
The Ori were latecomers to the party, being activated as enemies at the start of SG-1's season 9. They were at first content to mind their own business in their own galaxy until they were confronted with the prospect of life in our galaxy. Life that didn't worship them.
The name of the Ori in facts refers to two groups. First it refers to a race of truly ancient humans who evolved as the same society as The Ancients (also called the Alterans and the Lanteans). Like the Ancients, they have achieved Ascension, leaving behind the material plane of existence and learning to live as pure energy. Unlike the Ancients, they have discovered that if vast, vast swathes of lesser humans worship them, then they continue to grow in power. The second group called the Ori refer to these regular humans, an entire galaxy of them, who bow in supplication to the Ascended Ori, feeding them with their worship in a religion called Origin.
This parasitic existence and true level of deity-like power makes the Ori overshadow the Goa'uld as a threat, extrapolating on the same themes to their logical conclusion. When the Ori discover the Milky Way Galaxy and the life within, they begin a crusade to purge or convert it. Either humanity will submit to the will of the Ori or they will be wiped out, there is no sitting this one out.
The reason the Ori rank at the top spot on this list is because unlike so many of the other villains presented here, they represent the truly darkest aspects of humanity. Vala Mal Doran (charming smuggler turned adventurer) comments that while she lived amongst them, she met and married a man named Tomin, a kind, sweet man who cared for her. But when he joined the crusade fleet, something he saw as his holy duty, he was heard to scream that he was 'Deaf to all but the teachings of Origin'.
Extreme religious fundamentalism has proven time and time again to be one of the most dangerous forces in our own, non-fantastical, world. To see it portrayed in such a cheerful show as Stargate SG-1 is both quietly terrifying and resolutely embittering.
Hallowed Are The Ori.