Pegasus

The Pegasus Galaxy is the name of a dwarf galaxy in the Local Group, located approximately 3 million light years away from the Milky Way. It was the galaxy where the Ancients traveled to in the city ship Atlantis after they abandoned the Milky Way. They were forced to abandon it after most of the galaxy was conquered by the Wraith. Most human cultures are at low levels of development, but some are comparable to early or mid twentieth century Earth. However, there are actually a surprising amount of advanced races, whose technology rivals that of the Tau'ri, that are hiding from the Wraith.

Ancient's use
Several million years ago, the Ancients were forced to abandon Earth and the Milky Way to escape a plague that infected the Ancients. They left in the city ship Atlantis from Antarctica and set a course for a new home, the Pegasus Galaxy. When they arrived, they seeded the galaxy with human life, the same way they did in the Milky Way. They set up outposts on several worlds, including Athos, Doranda and Taranis, forged alliances and interacted with indigenous populations they created, learned and studied their homeworld, Lantea, including a whale-like creature known as Flagisallus and served as guardians all over the galaxy.

For millions of years, the Lantean society flourished, and they started their own Stargate network. Some time, during the Lantean reign, they stumbled across a planet with an Iratus bug, who mutated from contact with humans, to form Wraith. The Wraith moved as a great scourge across the galaxy, feeding upon the life-force of the human populated worlds. The Ancients tried to fight the scourge (including creating the first Asurans as an attempt to oppose the Wraith) and although the Ancients' technology was significantly more advanced, the sheer numbers of the Wraith forced the Ancients into submission.

In just a century, the Wraith fleet took control of all Lantean controlled worlds one by one, until Lantea was all that remained. The Wraith later attempted to seize Atlantis, but the Lanteans defeated all the Wraith threw at them. However, despite winning every battle, they saw no way to win the war, as the Wraith launched more waves, forcing the Lanteans to submerge Atlantis, until they were forced to flee back to Earth, hoping that one day their kind would return.

For the next 10,000 years, the galaxy would be in complete control of the Wraith. The Asurans tried to destroy them, but were later shut down by the Wraith, since they aren't edible to them. All the races who were technologically advanced were either all wiped out, forced to abandon advanced living, or in hiding from the Wraith.

Arrival of the Atlantis Expedition
10,000 years later, since the Lanteans abandoned the galaxy, Daniel Jackson found the gate address to the lost city of the Ancients at the Ancient outpost in Antarctica. The Tau'ri sent the Atlantis Expedition to the Pegasus Galaxy, where they discovered the city of Atlantis in a near perfect condition. However, the Zero Point Modules were depleted, forcing the city to rise up, and there was no means of power to gate back to Earth. The expedition was forced to take up residence in the city. However, during an attempt to discover new Zero Point Modules to replace the depleted ones on Atlantis, the expedition came in contact with the Wraith, accidentally interrupting their hibernation cycle prematurely.

One by one, the Wraith began to awaken, again feeding on the human worlds, without sufficient "live stock" to sustain the entire species. During the first encounter between the Wraith and the Atlantis expedition, the Wraith had learned about the existence of Earth and the Milky Way, a rich new feeding ground with countless billions of humans. However, without Intergalactic hyperdrive technology as the Ancients, Asgard, Tau'ri and other advanced races possessed and the Pegasus Stargate network unable to dial outside their Galaxy, the Wraith were unable to deduce the exact location or any way to get there, leaving to a situation with the entire Wraith species awake and too little food to sustain them.

During the years the expedition lived, they explored the galaxy for the hopes of searching for ZPMs to dial Earth and protect the city, formed alliances with other races for trade, including the Athosians and even help in defeating the Wraith, and went to war with another race, the Asurans, who were eventually destroyed in the Battle of Asuras. The next major event was the poisoning of a large number of Human worlds with the Hoffan drug by Michael Kenmore in his attempt at killing the Wraith and replacing them with his Hybrid's. This plan was ultimately thwarted but resulted in the deaths of countless Humans in the galaxy. Michael is later killed by Teyla when he invades Atlantis.

The next upheaval in the galaxy was made by the Vanir who activated the Attero device with the intention of destroying the weakened Wraith. This act, however, had the side effect of causing a number of Stargates to accumulate excess power and explode bringing about the death of thousands.

Characteristic of the galaxy
Unlike in the Milky Way, the populations of the Pegasus Galaxy are not as much intimidated by the existence of the Stargate; in fact, they use the Stargate as a means of interplanetary travel and trade. They do not consider people traveling through the gate as superior, as opposed to the majority of races in the Milky Way (with the exception of cultures such as the Tollan, Langaran, and Sodan), who considered gate-traveling races much superior if not, godly beings. This may be due to the fact that, while Goa'ulds saw gate-traveling as one aspect that made them superior to the rest of the Galaxy's human population, the Wraith were slumbering most of the time, preferred space travel, and did not restrict the use of the Stargate.

Races native to the galaxy

 * Asurans
 * Bug People
 * Hybrid
 * Michael's experiment
 * Humans
 * Asuran
 * Athosian
 * Bolo Kai
 * Genii
 * Hoffan
 * Human-form Wraith
 * Satedan
 * Traveler
 * Iratus Bug
 * Wraith
 * Sekkari

Known planets in Pegasus

 * See list of Pegasus planets