Played by former Farscape actress Claudia Black, Vala was created by Damian Kindler and Robert C. Cooper as a guest character for the season 8 episode "Prometheus Unbound" (2004).

After giving birth to the Ori's new leader in season 10, Vala joins the SG-1 team to stop the enemy, eventually becoming a permanent member of both SG-1 and Stargate Command.

[4][5] At the time of Vala's first encounter with SG-1 team member Daniel Jackson in the season 8 episode "Prometheus Unbound", she has become a thief and a con artist.

[13] In "Unending", the last episode of the series, SG-1 gets stuck in a time dilation field aboard the Earth ship Odyssey, and a romance between Vala and Daniel finally comes to fruition.

Before the time dilation field is reversed after fifty years, erasing all linked memories in the process, Daniel and Vala express their feelings for each other.

[16] Official Stargate sources advertised Vala as a "scheming, unscrupulous, thieving con artist",[17] "feisty" and "occasionally fickle",[18] with a "mysterious agenda" and a seemingly "amorous interest in Dr. Daniel Jackson".

[18] Claudia Black and Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson) linked their characters' early relationship to a Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn dynamic of "not so much of tension, but rather constant antagonism".

[32] Asked about a possible romance between Vala and Daniel before the filming of the series finale, Black predicted that a consummation of the relationship would end badly in terms of both story and on-screen chemistry.

[33] When producer Robert C. Cooper presented his preliminary script for the series finale, "Unending", both Black and Shanks protested his intended story of having Vala and Daniel sleep together without a confrontation.

[35] Cooper explained that by Vala's contacting of Stargate Command about the imminent threat at the end of season 9, she "has reached a point of honesty with [the SG-1] characters and possibly herself on a level that she's never had before".

[26][40] According to Black; Vala's motivation to hide her miraculous pregnancy by marrying the local villager Tomin (played by Tim Guinee) in late season 9 stems from "genuinely car[ing] for the man.

[42] The main cast's availability was limited, as Richard Dean Anderson had a reduced season schedule, and Amanda Tapping and Christopher Judge filmed "Gemini" in parallel to "Prometheus Unbound".

Not fully content with Kindler's conservative approach, producer Robert C. Cooper amplified the character's cheeky and sexy personality in his own passes of the script.

C. Cooper suggested Australian actress Claudia Black for the role of Vala and contacted her agent two days before the filming of "Prometheus Unbound" began.

[25] She thought the script of "Prometheus Unbound" was funny and self-contained enough for creative experiments, so she accepted the role and called the episode's director, Andy Mikita, in advance.

[23][44] On set, Claudia Black and Michael Shanks decided to make one of their first scenes, a fight sequence, as funny and non-machismo as possible to mirror Daniel's non-military background.

Ben Browder and Beau Bridges joined the main cast as Lieutenant-Colonel Cameron Mitchell and Major General Hank Landry, respectively.

At the same time, the producers re-introduced Vala in a six-episode story arc to cover for the maternity leave of SG-1 regular Amanda Tapping (Lieutenant-Colonel Samantha Carter).

[18][22][24] Because Ben Browder and Claudia Black were well known for formerly starring as star-crossed lovers in the cult sci-fi series Farscape, the Stargate producers refrained from emphasizing the pairing of Mitchell and Vala beyond in-jokes.

[26][48] The producers instead opted to further the comedic chemistry between Claudia Black and Michael Shanks, who linked their characters' early relationship to a Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn dynamic of "not so much of tension, but rather constant antagonism".

A scene from "The Ties That Bind", which was later cut for time, originally made clear that Wallace Shawn's character greatly exaggerated the sexual relationship between him and Vala.

[47] Producer Robert C. Cooper, who wrote and directed "Crusade", used the circumstances to set the stage for Adria, Vala's future daughter and the show's new villain in season 10.

"[42] Evolving the relationship between Vala and the other SG-1 members, the producers also grew comfortable with pairing Browder's and Black's characters more often, and even teased (and misled) viewers about them "end[ing] up in a motel room bed together" in the episode "Memento Mori", involving underwear, "handcuffs as well as creamy Twinkies".

[51] Although Black considered Continuum "not a Vala-centric piece" as she only "makes a brief appearance",[52] Stargate producer Joseph Mallozzi thought "she's got some great, juicy scenes".

[53] Claudia Black mentioned an interest in portraying her character in the future,[54] but Mallozzi rated the chances of her appearing in the planned Stargate Universe spin-off series as "not so good".

[20][30][58] Similarly, a scene showing Vala unpacking her hair dryer and curling iron during an offworld mission in "The Quest" was deemed too silly and was trimmed to the basics; it would have been cut if the footage had allowed it.

[66][67] The Sun Herald thought of the character as "a thoroughly charming intergalactic thief famed for using her allure to get what she wants",[68] and Matt Roush of TV Guide called Claudia Black "great fun to watch in [seasons 8 and 9]".

"[70] He welcomed the producers' decision to not cast a carbon copy of Samantha Carter, and thought that Claudia Black's Vala in her six-episode arc remained "the best thing in the series".

[70] By season 10's "Memento Mori", TV Zone's Anthony Brown felt that "Ben Browder and Claudia Black have...reached a point where they can play out an amusing take on Misery without you feeling that [their Farscape characters] have somehow starbursted onto SG-1's Earth".

[71] Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune called Browder and Black's interaction in season 10 "great fun; the rapport they developed on the stellar Farscape was still much in evidence, even though they played radically different characters on SG-1.