Mefitis

**Mefitis** is one of the main characters used in the Section: Stargate Role plays - Stargate SG1.

## History

Nothing is known of Mefitis' spawnmother and little is known of her early years. The most accredited version says that she was born in the 3rd millenium BC and, after being implanted within a shepherd's daughter, she acted as a queen to her 'father' for two millenia. By the 1st millenium BC, in a time that coincided with the migration of the Oscan peoples in the south of Italy, she became the leader of a small domain in the southern Appennine range and, for a few centuries, she expanded further south, but this was not to last. By the 7th century a Goa'uld, said to be either Mars, Laran or Ares, needing a source for prim'ta, proposed Mefitis to become his wife. Mefitis refused, eager to keep her independence, and from there a conflict emerged, first a low-intensity one and then a real war. By the 2nd century Mefitis had lost the war but, unwilling to give herself to the winner she passed through the stargate on her ship together with a few thousands of her worshippers towards a new world only known to her, then she buried the ship by blowing up a small cave making any attempt to follow her impossible.

Over the next millenia, Mefitis was isolated from Goa'uld life. She didn't witness the final fall of Goa'uld power on Earth or to the infighting that eventually characterized Goa'uld civilization or even the formation of the Tok'ra.
And while the galaxy endured the Tau'ri and the Replicators and the Ori, she stood by, unaware of everything. All of this changed in 2010, when a patrol of the System Lord Sobek casually discovered her planet. A small confrontation ensued but then diplomatic relations and a technological partnership were estabilished with Sobek. Few months later, Mefitis revealed herself to the summit of the surviving Goa'ulds, where she was officially anointed a System Lord.

## Personality

Mefitis is an ancient creature, with knowledge far surpassing that of any regular human. She witnessed and personally waged a war that lasted for five centuries from which she learned the basics of military strategy and, always pricing knowledge, she studied all kinds of philosophies and theologies over the millenia. Likewise, Mefitis was always an avid student of human cultures and has learned over time dozens of languages, most prominently Pelasgian, Etruscan, Minoan, Mycenean and Ancient Greek, Avestan, Egyptian, Hebrew and many more, in addition to her 'native' Oscan, which she loves above most. She has shaped the culture of her subjects in all kinds of ways and she sees them as her creations. Indeed, her love for her subjects is, in many ways, a narcisistic extension of her love for herself. Of course all of this has not contributed to making Mefitis a universally benevolent Goa'uld. Like most of her kind, Mefitis is not exempt from the god complex characteristic of the Goa'uld. In return for her love, she expects unconditional and absolute devotion and worship from her people and she is known for employing torture and brainwashing before forcing her enemies to publically acknowledge her godhood. Most of the times she will eventually dispose of her enemies but, if they put up a scene entertaining enough to her, she is not above sparing their lives. Mefitis has also acquired a degree of human feminity from her vessel, twisting it of course according to her Goa'uld nature. She sees perfection in her body and she likes to accentuate it and emphasise her perceived godhood by covering herself in jewelry and accessories made of the most precious metals and stones and the most precious wools and silks. This beauty she uses to extort informations or subjugate the wills of captives of the opposite sex, often in conjunction with a chemical compound similar to nish'ta that she can exhale in a near-imperceptible manner.

## Mythology

The Oscan name Mefitis may derive from 'medhio - dhuitis', from there 'Mefifitis' and, eventually, 'Mefitis', meaning 'She who smokes in the middle' or 'She who inebriates herself'. From a tract of the grammarian Priscian in which Mefitis is considered a transliteration of the Greek 'mesitis', meaning 'mediator', some scholars have traced Mefitis to the Oscan 'mefiai', corresponding to Latin 'medius' and Greek 'mesos', attributing to Mefitis the meaning of 'She who stays in the middle'.

A peaceful deity, she is attributed the power to act as an intermediary, that is to preside to passage, of representing 'she who presides to dualisms' like life and death, night and day, heat and cold, the kingdom of the living and the underworld. The very water source is the symbol of the strength of water that from the bowels of the earth emerges on the surface and then passes to the air, and Mefitis presides to this transition. She epitomises the heavenly and unearthy qualities attributed by the Greeks to Demeter, Persephone and Aphrodite. In the beginning she was the cthonian deity of water sources, but also of herds, of fields and fecundity. It was exactly this divine link to the agricultural world that made her the goddess of the market and exchange (the mediator), so much so that it was in the sanctuaries dedicated to her that a perfect harmony was found between worship and trade of goods and cattle. Eventually the evolution of her cult brought Mefitis towards the benefits deriving from the use of thermal and thus sulphurous waters linked to the quality of "sanatio", since sulphurous waters and muds, for their high concentrations of sulphur, could be used for the healing of human and animal illnesses. An aspect that hasn't been studied yet is the relationship between her cult and transhumance which, in fact, is reflected in the idea of a deity that presides to a rite of transition such as the passing of herds to new seasonal pastures and in the fact that some of the ancient holy grounds placed close to transhumant roads were dedicated to Mefitis. Her most important place of worship lied in the Valley of Ansanto, known for its still-active minor volcanic phenomena.