Tollans

• Arrogant bastards. (Enigma, Pretense, Shades of Grey)
• Clothing tends toward dark neutrals, particularly greys, for both men and women. (Between Two Fires)
• Science has advanced far beyond Terran science -- they're about 800 years ahead of us, having never gone through a dark age (ignoring the fact that the dark ages weren't that dark...) (Enigma)
• Tollans have implants in their wrists/forearms that are used to monitor their health (each has a monitoring device they can use to check their implants, which stores a record of their health data). The implants are connected to a central system as well -- if there's a problem, health officers are dispatched immediately. Normal response time is less than five minutes. (Between Two Fires)
• Sher-mal: Legendary Tollan figure similar to an angel, said to appear at the moment of death and take you to her dwelling in the stars. (Enigma)
• The highest governing body is the Curia. (Pretense)
• Guests, at least guests for triad, were housed in spacious quarters, identified by a hanging banner denoting the guest's origin.
  • Skaara/Klorel had a double banner: the top half was red, with a gold serpent symbol on it, for Klorel, while the bottom half was a golden-yellow, with the symbol for Abydos (an inverted V with three circles around the top). (Pretense)
  • SG-1 had a blue banner with a silver Earth symbol (inverted V with one circle at the top). (Pretense)
  • Lya had a dark buff-colored banner, with a purple fenri in the middle of it. (Pretense)
• The Tollans don't trust more primitive cultures to be able to handle technology, after a devastating experience. (Enigma)
  • The Tollans had discovered civilization on a neighboring planet, and waited until it was at a level of technology similar to Earth's in the very late 20th century, and then made contact and offered them technology that would produce unlimited productive energy.
  • The Satirans used it to make war, destroying their entire world in the space of one day. (Enigma)
  • The destruction shifted Tollan's orbit slightly, enough to destabilize the planet and start the chain of events that caused the Tollans to flee.
• As a result of their experience with the Satirans, the Tollans have developed an iron-clad Prime Directive (without calling it that). (Enigma)
  • When SG-1 traveled to Tollana to open formal diplomatic relations between the two worlds, the Tollans were happy to agree, especially since the Tau'ri had saved them from the Goa'uld (in Pretense). When Daniel asked to trade for technology, however -- specifically weapons technology -- the Tollans refused, saying that the reasons behind their laws against giving technology to less advanced species were still relevant in this case. (Shades of Grey)
  • If their own world is threatened, they're willing to look past the "prime directive&quotif need be -- they offered ion cannons to Earth in exchange for help while they were being suborned by the Goa'uld Tanith. (Between Two Fires)
• Travel by ship as well as by stargate (Enigma, A Hundred Days, Tangent)
• Refused to go live in the Land of Light after the SGC got Tuplo to agree to offer them a place there -- they considered it far too primitive a world. (Enigma)
• Their word for quantum physics is "quilebrium physics" -- and they consider it a "misconception of elementary science". (Enigma)

top | culture

• Curia:
  • The highest governing body. (Pretense)
  • The records of all Curia meetings were public, and inviolate by custom and law -- although that didn't stop the Curia from altering them when need be. (Between Two Fires)
  • Only the highest ranking members of the Curia would have access to the security system in the building where Travell's office is located. (Between Two Fires)
• Government deceit of the people is considered a more heinous crime than murder -- to Narim, such deception is unthinkable. (Between Two Fires)
• An official protest of Tollan policy is filed with every branch of every level of government, making it impossible to erase without a vast conspiracy. (Between Two Fires)

• Legal system
  • Involves "triad", a ceremony of justice similar to a trial, in which two "seekers" (defendants) select "archons" (attorneys) to represent them until a decision is reached by a neutral third neutral archon. A moderator presides over the proceedings, and renders judgement after the three archons vote. (Pretense)
    • It was permissible for a seeker to choose more than one archon to argue for him, but they would have only one vote between them. (Pretense)
    • Triad was held as a closed session. (Pretense)
    • There is no death penalty in Tollan law. (Pretense)
• Security forces
  • (Always seem to be wearing some sort of leather getup on Tollana) (Pretense, Between Two Fires)
  • Can use the health implants to track people, although under ordinary circumstances that's illegal. (Between Two Fires)
• Violent crime
  • Almost unknown among the Tollan -- Narim can't even remember another murder (other than Omoc's) occurring. (Between Two Fires)
  • Their security system keeps crime from happening -- mostly what slips through are "crimes of indiscretion," whatever that actually means. (Between Two Fires)

• Their original homeworld, Tollan, had had no living animals for generations. It was destroyed by natural causes (volcanoes, orbital instability), and they moved to a new one, which they cleverly named Tollana. (Enigma)
• Tollana was attacked by Tanith after SG-1 and Narim sabotaged his plans to gain highly destructive bombs from the Tollans. The Tollan stargate was destroyed in the attack, and the Tollans were forced to flee in ships, hoping to escape the Tanith's ha'tak vessel. (Between Two Fires)

top | culture

• Seem to be baseline human -- what sets them apart is their culture and technology.

top

• This is worn around the chest, and suppresses a Goa'uld's ability to silence his host, thus allowing each to speak at will, indicated by the red light for a symbiote, blue light for the host. (Pretense)

top | technology

• Narim has one of these strapped to his wrist during the eruptions on Tollan, whether  because he always wore one or because he was hoping to provide a personal record of the events. It records everything someone is feeling, but not thoughts. (Enigma)
• It's possible for someone else to "play back" the emotions and feel what the wearer was feeling. (Enigma)

top | technology

• Capable of destroying Goa'uld motherships. (Pretense)
• Made of an impenetrable alloy and protected by security codes. (Pretense)
• The system was set up so that if one cannon was attacked, the others would instantly locate and destroy the attacker. (Pretense)
• At least one Goa'uld has developed technology that can defend against the ion cannons, though. (Between Two Fires)
• It would take a minimum of 38 ion cannons to defend the entire earth. (Between Two Fires)

top | technology

• Narim and the other Tollans trapped on Earth had devices strapped to their wrists that altered their molecular structure to the point that they could walk through walls and were effectively invisible. Later, on Tollana, Narim still had one of these, but it's not entirely clear if everyone in the population has one, or if only certain people do. (Enigma, Between Two Fires)
• The devices's fields can be extended to cover people touching the wearer, so one device can be used for more than one person at a time. The easiest/most common form of contact seems to be holding hands -- makes perfect sense, since with both people maintaining a grip it's much less likely that the second person will accidentally be left behind in a wall.
• It's possible to attach a device to a non-sentient being (specifically, the cat Schroedinger -- Pretense) or to an inanimate object such as a bomb (Between Two Fires).
• Presumably, they also have the ability to apply this to much larger objects, but that's never shown.

top | culture

• These can disable any and all weaponry (at least projectile or energy weapons -- unlikely that it affects things like knives/clubs). (Pretense)

top | technology

• Unknown design, but capable of interstellar flight. (Enigma, A Hundred Days, Between Two Fires)
• When Daniel contacted the Tollans about possibly going to rescue Jack from Edora by ship, the Tollans said they could have a ship in the vicinity "early next year" (at a rough guess looking at the timeline, probably 6-9 months). (A Hundred Days)

top | culture

• Ability to build their own stargate on their new world. (Pretense)

top | technology

• No clear explanation on these, but the Tollans had a device that produced unlimited energy. (Enigma)

top | technology

• Triad
• Legal process, similar to a trial
• Archons
• Legal representatives, similar to attorneys

top

• One of the ten Tollan left behind on their original homeworld to seal the stargate and wait to be picked up. He was saved by SG-1. Is slightly less arrogant than the others, mainly because he's got a crush on Sam and wants to keep in her good graces. He wore an emotion-recorder every time he was around Sam, and before he left he gave it to her so that she could play it back and feel exactly what he was feeling. (Enigma)
• Has an orange tabby named Schroedinger that Sam gave him. (Enigma, Pretense)
• He was sent to the SGC to request SG-1's help with Skaara's triad. He sent Schroedinger through the iris first so they'd know a friend was coming. (Pretense)
  • He vaguely explained what a triad was ("an ancient ceremony of justice"), but with no details. He focused more on the fact that Skaara had requested that SG-1 be there. (Pretense)
  • He functioned as SG-1's liaison during their stay on Tollana, escorting them to the Curia chambers to meet Travell and then to Skaara's quarters to see him. He didn't bother warning them that their guns would be disabled because he didn't find it relevant. When Jack seemed upset, he said they could carry the useless weapons if it would make them feel better. (Pretense)
  • He was very upset to hear that Sam and Teal'c had been undiplomatic enough to follow Zipacna's Jaffa around, and upset and offended when Sam told him that she thought the Jaffa had been meddling with the Tollans' ion cannons, insisting that they were too well protected. When Sam insisted that she was right, he gave in and went to Travell with the information to do a formal investigation of the charge (by physically checking the cannon Sam was talking about). (Pretense)
  • He interrupted the triad to bring news of Zipacna's mothership approaching the planet. (Pretense)
• Turns out to be a stalker-boy. He used Sam's voice as the voice of his house computer, much to Sam's surprise. Was honestly horrified at the thought that his government might be acting without the public's knowledge, and for all that he clearly wasn't used to making these sorts of decisions, did the right thing and risked his planet's and his people's utter destruction by sabotaging the bombs the Tollan high council were building for Tanith. Possibly died in the resulting attack/escape attempt. (Between Two Fires)

top | known Tollans

• Leader of the ten Tollan left behind on their original homeworld to seal the stargate and wait to be picked up. He was saved by SG-1. Arrogant as hell. (Enigma) Murdered by the rest of his own High Council when he refused to go along with collaborating with the Goa'uld. (Between Two Fires)

top | known Tollans

• High Chancellor, very good at turning down Jack's requests for tech. Head of the Curia, the Tollan's highest governing body. (Pretense, Shades of Grey)
• Incredibly smugly arrogant about Tollan superiority to both Tau'ri and Goa'uld technology, blindly convinced that there was no way Zipacna could be planning to destroy Tollana's ion cannons because it was impossible to do so, even when faced with very reasonable explanations of how he could be doing just that. Instead, she thought that Jack and the others were trying to influence the triad's outcome, and threatened to boot them off the triad as Skaara's archons if they said another word about it. (Pretense)
• Her position appeared to be that of ruler/monarch as much as leader -- she told Teal'c that if he were one of her subjects (not people), she would have to discipline him for disregarding her warnings. (Pretense)
• Traveled to Earth herself (with another member of the High Council) to demand the return of the device Jack stole, and to tell Hammond that she was severing all diplomatic ties with Earth. (Shades of Grey)
• Wound up collaborating with Tanith -- to the point of being involved in Omoc's murder -- in an attempt to save her world, but failed when SG-1 and Narim sabotaged the bombs the Tollans were building. Possibly dead in the subsequent attack on Tollana. (Between Two Fires)

top