The Reetou: A New Kind of Foe

If you can’t see it, touch it, or kill it with conventional weapons, what is it? Why, a Reetou of course!

In the early seasons of Stargate SG-1, the producers were looking for a new foe to offset the overwhelming opposition of the Goa’uld. We all know the mechanized Replicators would ultimately be the ones to stick (introduced in the Season Three finale, “Nemesis”). But a little more than a year prior the folks at Bridge Studios tried their hand at another kind of foe — a bug kind.

Season Two was coming to a close. Apophis had just bit the dust for the first time of what would prove to be many, and it seemed right to add a new baddy. Enter the Reetou, a computer-generated insectoid species that you can’t see, can’t hear, and can’t fight — except with a special Tok’ra weapon: the transphase eradication rod, or TER.

Either by the evolution of the species or technological design, the Reetou existed precisely 180 degrees out of phase with the rest of us. These TERs not only de-phased the Reetou so we could see them, but also armed us with a type of plasma ammo that could kill them.

Unfortunately the Reetou never took off as  a fully realized enemy. After “Show and Tell,” the episode in which they were introduced, they were only mentioned once or twice in the rest of the series. The TERs, however, became much more common on the show, as they were capable of cutting through Goa’uld cloaking technology. They would also become instrumental in defending Earth against Anubis’s Super Soldiers.

Had the PC game Stargate SG-1: The Alliance not been cancelled, fans would have seen the Reetou more fully realized. The game included at least one level where SG-1 fought against the Reetou rebel faction, and even spoke to some of the creatures. Alas, it just wasn’t meant to be.