is a
Fictional Character in the television series
Stargate SG-1 played by the actress
Claudia Black . While the character's name must be alien in origin, in real life, the name ''Vala'' is of an old
German meaning of ''singled out''. ''Mal'' is an
English Prefix for ''bad''. The name Doran is of
Irish and
Gaelic origin, and that means means ''fist'', ''stranger'', or ''exile''.
Vala is a "space pirate" of sorts, as well as a thief notorious across the galaxy for using
Sex to carry out her heists. She was apparently a former host to a
Goa'uld named
Qetesh (fittingly, based on the sex goddess
Qetesh of Chaldean and Egyptian mythology). She claimed the
Tok'ra eventually incited an uprising and the Goa'uld symbiote was removed. However, Vala also claims that the Tok'ra forgot to tell the people of the village that the person who had so harshly ruled them was not Vala herself, but another being controlling her, and as a result the villagers stoned Vala, mistakenly thinking that it was Vala who had enslaved them. The Tok'ra supposedly rescued her before she was killed, and nursed her back to health from near death. As a consequence, Vala has
Naquadah in her blood and can operate most Goa'uld technology, including the
Healing Device .
She is first introduced in Season Eight's "
Prometheus Unbound ", during which she attempted to steal the ''Prometheus'' to trade it for an extremely large amount of weapons-grade
Naquadah , but her plans were thwarted by
Daniel Jackson ; as was later revealed, this gave her and Daniel a bad name with the
Lucian Alliance . Vala eventually made her escape from the
''Prometheus'' on a captured
Al'kesh .
Vala later sought out Daniel Jackson on Earth after she obtained a tablet written in an
Ancient Cipher ; she bound Daniel to her with a
Bracelet which renders the wearers unconscious if they become separated for too long, and causes eventual death if the situation is not rectified (originally used by the Goa'uld
Cronos to assure that a valuable prisoner did not escape from the
Jaffa guarding him). An important result of this connection, to which Daniel had not consented, was missing his intended passage on board the
''Daedalus'' , from whence he had intended to journey to
Atlantis . The tablet Vala had brought (which Daniel now grudgingly agreed to decipher) led to the discovery of an
Ancient/Alteran chamber containing an Ancient communication device and a book which identifies the
Avalon of
Arthurian Mythology to be the name the Ancients called Earth. Together, she and Daniel Jackson use what is apparently an Ancient communicator found as a result of the tablet, to encounter a village in a distant galaxy populated by descendents of the Ancients. There they encounter the
Ori for the first time. The Ori turn out to be ascended beings who dictate that those who do not follow them are evil. Vala was killed by a
Trial By Fire after she was accused of being overcome, though she was soon resurrected by a
Prior (a prior is a human loyal to the Ori who are granted special powers). After this, she and Dr. Jackson were taken to the city of the Ori, where they were kept as prisoners; they were returned to the village to be burned. At this juncture, however, Lt. Colonel
Cameron Mitchell and
Teal'c successfully destroyed the Ancient communication device by throwing it into the unstable vortex (unstable opening state of a wormhole) of the Stargate, obliterating it and saving the lives of both Daniel and Vala.
Prior to meeting the Tau'ri, she had used a voice-altering device on a planet formerly ruled by
Qetesh to pretend that she herself was
Qetesh , thus gaining the minute quantities of naquadah still in the planet's mines. She was by and large a fair ruler, but she did employ forced labor. She invented a
Trial -like proceeding called a "Mal Doran" on that planet.
Vala appeared to die stopping the Ori from setting up a
Supergate in the Milky Way but later reappeared in "
Crusade " where we learn that she was thrown on a Ori homeworld where she lived undercover.
After finding another device in the Ori home world, she takes over Daniel's body in an attempt to transmit information back to SG-1. She tells them how she was rescued by a man, and lived undercover, trying to blend in. Then Vala drops a bombshell: she tells SG1 that she's pregnant. The biggest mystery is that she did none of the necessary acts to become pregnant. Fearing for her life, she marries the man who saved her and convinces him that she is carrying his child. She discovers the truth about the child—that it's the "divine" work of the Ori—by overhearing a conversation between her husband and a Prior. As she starts to tell SG1 about the army approaching them, the link is severed and Daniel is back to himself.
Vala is last seen in the closing scene of "
Camelot " at the end of Season 9 aboard one of the invading
Ori Battlecruiser s.
Recently, Claudia Black has been contracted for Vala to become a Regular Character on Stargate SG-1 for Season 10.
- Claudia Black and Ben Browder starred on the cult sci-fi series ''Farscape''. This was the source of a in-joke in the ninth season premiere when Vala sees Mitchell and remarks "I don't know you. I think I'd remember if we met."
