P3X-797 was a planet in the Milky Way galaxy inhabited by a Bronze Age human civilization. The planet has a permanent, fixed terminator, dividing the land between daylight and night sides. The terminator falls on the equator, with the planet evidently in synchronous rotation with its sun, revolving around its fixed axis pointing at the star, thereby making one side of the planet, the Land of Light, a land of eternal brightness and the other side, the Land of Dark, a land of eternal darkness where the Stargate was located.
Whether this is the result of some massive planetary engineering or merely an extraordinary natural phenomenon that attracted the Gate Builder's attention here is unknown. Habitation is only possible in a thin band stretching approximately 100 miles in either direction of the equator. The poles do process at an accelerated rate, causing the "fixed terminator" to actually fluctuate up to a mile in either direction over the course of a 78 year cycle. This rapid pace is thought to be evidence of the terraforming of the equatorial zone to make it habitable. (RPG: "Fantastic Frontiers: Stargate Season One")
Once capable of supporting life, the planet became a natural laboratory on the effects of perpetual day and night cycles. The people on this planet are apparently descended from Minoans brought to this world, most likely by the Goa'uld, known among the locals as "Hilk'sha". As of March, 1997, the "gods" hadn't visited the planet for some time. For unknown reasons, the planet's Stargate is located on the "dark" side, albeit not far from the "border" with the "light" side.
At one point, a disease called the Touch caused some of the inhabitants of the Land of Light to become animalistic. The people, called The Touched, were banished to the dark side of the planet and those not infected with the disease became known as the Untouched. The Untouched believed the disease was a curse brought about by invisible evil gods and that those infected could not be cured.
SG-1 was infected with this disease when they came into contact with the Touched, but they eventually discovered how to cure it. They showed the Untouched how to cure the rest of the Touched and thus earned their respect. (SG1: "The Broca Divide", "Politics")
Later, High Counselor Tuplo would offer the Tollans the opportunity of joining them in the Land of Light after Tollan was destroyed by cataclysmic events. Omoc, however, decided their world was unacceptable on the ground that he found them "even more primitive" than the Tau'ri. (SG1: "Enigma")
Teal'c's wife Drey'auc and their son Rya'c came to the Land of Light to hide from Apophis, after SG-1 foiled Apophis' plan to use Rya'c to destroy Earth. (SG1: "Family")
They apparently later moved to live with other Jaffa elsewhere. (SG1: "Redemption, Part 1")
Behind the scenes[]
- Stargate SG-1: The DVD Collection issue 6 identifies the missing glyph for this planet as the point of origin for Abydos. However, this could not be possible due to the fact that the point of origin appears only on that gate. This problem appears to have been noticed by the producers of the magazine, as they later corrected it in issue 10 to be a different glyph.