The Nakai

The Nakai are the silent hunters of Stargate Universe. A blue-skinned alien species that tracks the old ship Destiny across space. They abduct, they probe, they experiment, convinced that Destiny holds a secret that belongs to them.

Almost nothing is known about them, and that is exactly what is so worrying. The Nakai follow Destiny like prey, appear when you least expect them, and leave with whatever they came for. Their relentlessness suggests the Ancient ship matters enormously to them.

Their victim of choice is Rush. Abducted, examined and marked by them, he comes back changed, haunted by what they put him through.

The Nakai embody all the anxiety of Stargate Universe: an enemy you cannot understand, in a remote corner of the universe where Earth is no longer around to come to the rescue.

The Nakai draw on a very modern myth, born in the mid-20th century: alien abduction. The first famous account is that of an American couple, Betty and Barney Hill, who claimed in 1961 to have been abducted and examined aboard an unknown craft.

Since then, testimonies have multiplied, almost always built on the same scenario: a capture, an intrusive medical exam, sometimes an implant, then the return, with hazy memories and the feeling of having been violated in one's most private self. Science remains skeptical and sees it mostly as a psychological phenomenon, but the fear is very real.

By taking this myth literally, and inflicting it on Rush, Stargate Universe turns it into the embodiment of humanity's loneliness in the face of an immense cosmos, populated by presences that owe it nothing and that it will never fully understand.