[Reaper]

My take on them is closer to the difference between Humans on Earth and the "Ancients" in the various Stargate Shows.

The basic explaination is, Humans today, and as we know them, are at the least a second incarnation of the life form. BILLIONS of years ago, The Ancients (forget the acutal name for the race) existed and evolved as a life form. As they began using more and more of their minds, they achieved almost super powers. The power to heal by using their minds and whatnot. Eventually, they began using almost 100% of their brians and found a way to assend. MEaning leaving behind the mortal bodies and exsiting as pure energy. (much like the Vorlons of Babylon 5) Not every Ancient assended. you had to learn how to and in addition to learning how, you had to be ready for it and prepared.

Once assended you existed in another demention. YOu didnt' "die" so to speak, but your life Energy could be destroyed. YOu retained the power to effect things in your original demention, but could hide yourself from it as well.

Eventually, these ancients recreated the Human form. (Us) and we are on a second evolutionary trip towards that goal (even if we don't all know it) The Ancients that did assend have laws, meaning they can't give outright help to humans, humans have to reach assention on their own.

Now, Hatch calling the Beings of Light the Lords of Kobol may not be wrong. IT may very well be that the "religous" leaders of Kobol are the ones who "assended" to beings of energy (or light) And just as humans can act on good or evil rationals, so can these beings. Thus you have Iblis. It's just harder for the evil to reach this level, that's why you have one ultimate evil (Iblis) fighting against the good (beings of light). Evil, once on this level, breaks the rules, and that's why evil appears more powerful. All the beings of light could do as Iblis did, but the rules the "live" by prevent them from doing so.

This might also be supported by the fact that Adama and probably alot of Warriors from his time were taught the basics of mind control over objects. The COlonials are just starting to relearn what it would take to assend again.