Laurence Conner

Laurence Conner was an officer in the United States Air Force. After graduating from the University of Missouri-Rolla he undertook flight training and, after some time serving as an ambassadorial attaché, joined the Stargate Program. Assigned to SG-9, under the command of Captain Jonas Hanson, he undertook several missions for Stargate Command. One such mission took them to P3X-513 where Hanson came to be regarded as a god by the native Avnilians. Assisting SG-1 he was able to help the natives overthrow Hanson's rule. Conner was later made a captain and given command of SG-11.

Early life
Born in Jefferson City, Missouri in the United States of America on the 23rd of June, 1970, little is known of Conner's history before he enrolled in the University of Missouri-Rolla where he studied and gained a Bachelor of Science in Astronautical Engineering. He later completed flight training at the Naval Air Station in Kingsville, Texas before training at the Naval Flight Weapons School. During this training, he gained a competence in using the 61A1 Vulcan 20mm Cannon, the AIM9 Sidewinder, AGM-84 Anti-Ship missile cluster bombs and the AGM-65 Maverick missiles which were fitted on the F/A-18 Hornet Fighter he was also trained to use.

SG-9
After this training, Conner spent a lot of time serving as an attaché to various ambassadorial staffs, which led him to believe that many of his peers did not consider him a true airman. As such, he trained himself very hard so that he could prove his worth. Conner would later go on to serve the United States Air Force in the Persian Gulf, where he flew twenty eight combat missions between 1990 and 1991. These missions were using the digital control-by-wire control system equipped in the F/A-18 Hornet and would earn Conner the rank of Lieutenant. In 1994, he was recruited by General George Hammond to serve in the top-secret Stargate Command under Cheyenne Mountain, where he was assigned to SG-9 and served under Captain Jonas Hanson.

Following Hanson, Conner and his teammates undertook several successful missions on numerous worlds which, while not as glamorous as those undertaken by SG teams 1 and 2, were vital to the success of the SGC. One such mission, to P2B-011, provided SG-9 with information about the Goa'uld that proved vital to other SG teams. What neither Conner nor the SGC realized was that Hanson had in fact given one group of natives automatic weapons in exchange for this information, which led to them gaining the upper hand in their intermittent civil war. Through this and other missions, however, Conner and SG-9 gained the respect of their peers due to their ability to enter into peaceful negotiations with both Human and alien cultures with such ease.

Mission to P3X-513
It was not until SG-9's mission to P3X-513 that Conner would discover the true mentality of the man he was following, as Hanson&mdash;following the Avnilians superstition about beings coming through the Stargate&mdash;let the people believe he was a god. Lietenant Thomas Frakes, the team's anthropologist, agreed that it may be better to let the people believe this for a time. It was not long after this that Hanson rescued a boy who had got lost outside the peoples caves and, upon returning him to his people, was praised even further and started to believe he indeed was a god. Conner did not agree with this misuse of power, however, and nor did his teammate Frakes and so the two started to build mistrust among the populace. When Hanson discovered that these people did not believe he was a god, however, he tied them to stakes outside for seven days and let the sun burn their bodies badly. After this, Conner and Frakes managed to slip away from Hanson and his right hand man, Matthew Baker, in an attempt to reach the Stargate to inform Hammond about what had happened. Before they were able to reach the Stargate though, the Avnilians managed to hunt them down and captured Frakes, bringing him before Hanson who shot him. Conner, meanwhile, was able to reach the Stargate where he dialed Earth but, before he made it through, he heard the sound of a pistol being fired and assumed the worst; that his friend had been shot. Rather than go back to Earth, Conner chose to stay on the planet to avenge his friends death.

Soon after this, SG-1 were sent to the planet as Conner had sent his iris deactivation code but never came through. After a quick recon of the area around the Stargate, SG-1 headed in the direction they thought that SG-9 had went. Before they got far, Conner jumped out from a hiding place below some leaves and grabbed Daniel Jackson by the neck, getting ahold of his pistol and pointing it at him. It was only due to the intervention of Jack O'Neill that Conner did not fire the gun, and instead collapsed into O'Neill and Jackson's arms. The group took Conner back to the platform surrounding the Stargate where they questioned why Conner never stepped through the wormhole. It was then that Conner remembered about Frakes and, quickly running down the nearby path, discovered a pile of ashes where Frakes's body had once been. Conner quickly explained the situation to SG-1 and, though they didn't believe him at first, they soon accepted his story. Though O'Neill ordered Conner back to Earth to inform Hammond of what had happened, Conner refused and instead said that they would need his knowledge of the planet to complete their plan.

Conner accompanied SG-1 as they made their way to the village, making sure they went in the right direction. When night came, the group set up camp with each member taking watch at different times. Conner himself slept on a pallet on the ground for a short while before waking up and asking O'Neill that he be allowed to take watch. Just then, there was movement in the trees as the Avnilians got closer to the camp. While O'Neill woke the others from their sleep, the Avnilians attacked the camp and were able to capture Conner before SG-1 drove them back. The natives took Conner back to Hanson in the caves, where he was judged by Hanson and tied to a stake outside the caves to die under the UV radiation from the sun. There he stayed for days while SG-1 concocted a plan to save him, all the time becoming more and more damaged by the high levels of radiation on the planet.

Eventually, unable to wait any longer as Conner was near death, O'Neill chose to take the clothing from one of the natives who they managed to convince Hanson was not a god, and simply walked up to Conner's stake. Before he revealed who he was, Conner asked that O'Neill kill him as he could not stand being out in the radiation any longer. O'Neill refused and revealed his true identity, taking Conner before attempting to help him walk back to the group. They were quickly stopped by both the natives and Baker, however, who took O'Neill's weapons and brought them before Hanson. Once in the caves, the two were surprised to find Samantha Carter who&mdash;as she had previously been Hanson's girlfriend&mdash;was trying to convince Hanson to stop acting as a god. Rather than believe her, Hanson simply used Conner and O'Neill as bargaining chips, stating that he would kill them if Carter did not turn on a Goa'uld device he had found which would block a portion of the planet from radiation. Carter agreed in order to save both Conner and O'Neill's lives, and so switched the device on.

Rather than honoring the deal he had made, Hanson took Conner and O'Neill back to the Stargate which he had tilted so it was horizontal in order for him to bury it after its final use. Forcing the two to the edge of the Stargate, Hanson proclaimed that he now had the power to stop the sun from affecting the population to the Avnilians, informing them that he was going to bury the Stargate so that no more demons could come through. First, however, he planned to send O'Neill and Conner back to Earth without sending an IDC which would mean that the iris on Earth's Stargate would kill them instantly. Though Carter argued that this would be tantamount to killing them, Hanson ignored her and went forward with his plan. It was only due to the timely intervention of Daniel Jackson and Jamala, the local who was helping SG-1, that the two Tau'ri were saved. Rather than sending Conner and O'Neill through the Stargate, SG-1 managed to convince the Avnilians that Hanson was not a god by activating the shield which would protect them from the UV radiation. Angry, the Avnilians picked Hanson up and threw him through the Stargate to Earth, killing him. After this, Conner and the rest of SG-1 managed to get the Avnilians to lift their Stargate back into an upright position before using it to return to Earth.

Command of SG-11
After this incident, Conner was promoted to the rank of Captain and was given command of his own team; SG-11. During SG-11's mission to PXY-887, the team discovered that the planet was rife with trinium and so set up a mining outpost on the planet in order to get the material for Stargate Command. Soon after this, their mining attempts were discovered by the Salish Spirits who used their powers to make Conner and the rest of SG-11 disappear with no trace. SG-1 were once again sent to find out what had happened to Conner but were unable to find any trace of either the team or any struggle when they came across the mining camp.

Soon afterwards, SG-1 met up with the Salish who took them to see their Spirits in order to get SG-11 back. After speaking with these Spirits, SG-1 were told that SG-11 would be returned to them. They did not have to wait long, as what seemed to be Conner and his team soon emerged from the woods and returned with them to Earth; what they did not know was that this SG-11 was actually composed of shapeshifting Spirits who were spying on the Tau'ri to discover if they were trying to cheat the Salish out of their trinium, or Ke as the Salish called it. After learning what the Tau'ri were planning to do, the Spirits decided to destroy the SGC as they believed it was the only way to return peace to their planet. However, after some negotiating it was decided that the Spirits would instead simply bury their Stargate and leave the Tau'ri alone. The real Conners and his team were returned to the SGC, oblivious of what had happened to them.

SG-11 were later captured by Apophis before his first death, and tortured into revealing information about the Tau'ri so that Apophis could build an army of Human soldiers to infiltrate and destroy the SGC, calling them SG-X. Whether or not Conner was in command of the team at this time remains unknown, though he was not on the team when they were reformed under Colonel Edwards.

Behind the scenes
Conner is given two names by different sources, which has led to an inconsistency that has not been addressed in the Stargate canon. In the Stargate SG-1 Roleplaying Game book, Fantastic Frontiers: Stargate Season One by Alderac Entertainment Group, he is called Michael Conner whereas in Stargate SG-1: The DVD Collection 11 by Database Factory Ltd. he is given the name of Laurence Conner. It is unknown which of these is correct, or indeed if one of them is a middle name. However, as Stargate SG-1: The DVD Collection 11 was the most recently published, it is the name we use in this article.

In addition to this, the subtitles for the episodes that feature Conner themselves offer different spellings of his surname. In the original episode he appeared in, The First Commandment, his surname is spelled Connor whereas in the later episode, Spirits, it is spelled Conner. As this is a later source, and is backed up by both Stargate SG-1: The DVD Collection 11 and Stargate SG-1: Fantastic Frontiers: Stargate Season One, it is the name used for this article.