I believe the popular contemporary phrasing for the Tollen would likely be Transhuman.
Stargate Through the Looking Glass and into Heaven.
- Thread starter The Immortal Watch Dog
- Start date
To be transhuman you have to at least been human to begin with
Hence the Enigma.
Defo transwhatever though!
Tinfoil hats and riddles.
Update time! The attempt to unravel the mystery of the Tollan continues apace, Lorne gets a POV and Landry gets to show off why they'd let a guy who designs stealth planes and spaceships for a living command a forward action base.
O'Neill spars with the Tollan leader!
@Harlock @paulobrito @Gladiator Had to follow up the hype of the Nox with something at least half as good
Rax-Narya
.......
Captain Evan Lorne wasn’t exactly sure what he expected when he stepped through the gate, leading a team of nine rangers and two Abydonian interpreters. He knew that there was apparently a contradiction in intelligence on one of their potential trade partners, that the ruined yet highly advanced planet SG-1 discovered was Tollan. And that they now suspected there was some kind of op to conceal the true extent of their technological capabilities. He also knew his primary mission here was to contact the leaders of the Tollan colonies on Rax-Narya and inform them that some of their people didn’t make it out. Ostensibly this was just a rescue mission but given the seeming number of unknown variables here, it could have easily gone south and so he was told to watch himself.
Unknown number of variables, it seemed to Lorne like everyone assumed the Tollan were this supersecret advanced society that posed as comparatively primitive tradesmen when to him there seemed a much more logical explanation. Mainly, that the Tollan he encountered here were from a splinter group that broke off, maybe their version of a luddite movement or Amish? There were plenty of subcultures on earth that did that, the Lorne family ranch was on the outskirts of a commune of wealthy ex hippies who had abandoned the cities to form their own rural villages and while they had indoor plumbing and heating and cooling, most of their daily lives were spent living simply and rustically. They hunted and fished, farmed the way people farmed in the nineteenth century, dedicated their craftwork and art to something similar to the renaissance. They made whiskey and cider and were probably on their third generation living like that. He supposed by the standards of the Tollans the sprawling city that laid out before him and reminded him of old timey photos of New York City at the turn of the twentieth century would have been the equivalent.
It was a city on an inlet, he could smell the sea air and the docks loomed ahead of him with vessels that seemed to have rudimentary steam power and were those paddle wheels? The flags were different, the dress was different but if he didn’t know any better, he would have sworn that they had traveled through time instead of to another planet (Could a Stargate even do that?). The lead gate in the square shut off behind them and he took note of the fact that it was imposing and black with pink crystals in the chevrons, an uncomfortable reminder of the long reach of Apophis. There were six other gates, each resting one behind the other spaced out creating a wedge pattern. Those must have been the closed network Gates that Teal’c had mentioned, that could only go to one planet. Each one was enormous and color coded, greens and blues that reminded him of the Abydonian pyramids, one flanked by statues of Anubis and another by statues of Horus, another with a golden Eagle -Zeus- Lorne thought with a shudder, his interpreter having been one of the survivors of the Avalon raid. There were groups of laborers moving what looked like a cross between a buffalo and triceratops that was sleeping lazily in said crate (Evidently he was being sent to stud or was a prized animal as there was no fear there.) while a Kelownan heckled them for their laziness. Others from the class designated as Lotar seemed to bustle around them and Lorne felt uneasy. This was such a security risk, if anyone of these went back to any planet in King Cobra’s domain then the Serpent guard would be on their asses before sunset.
Ahead of them a group of men in blue uniform that reminded him of a city cop in a period drama walked over to them. The leader of the group identified himself as Artis and that he was one of the customs officers. He spoke space Egyptian/Imperial Standard damn well and didn’t seem to have trouble understand the accent or dialect of the Abydonians at all.
“He says he welcomes more of the Tau’Ri to Rax-Narya.”
Lorne nodded and then decided to break the ice “Tell him, his tone of voice suggests otherwise.”
The man frowned when this was relayed then shrugged.
“He says, there are many rumors flying around about your involvement in the ascension of Amun Ra” evidently. The imperial cult didn’t bill it as a death, merely that his body was destroyed, and his divine essence was FedExed to his proper place in control of all creation. “This makes him nervous for security reasons, it would look bad on and severely impact their commerce if the System Lords were to decide to embargo this world for conducting business with criminals from a hostile enemy power.”
Fair Lorne reasoned. “Then why hasn’t his government shown us the door?”
“He says, the Curia was given assurances that there would be no ramifications to Rax-Narya if they merely do business with the Tau’Ri but sign no treaty of alliance nor defend them in any future conflict. Evidently this O’Neill impressed Prince Horus enough to suspend hostilities”
Translation, they’re forgiving the Tollan and likely paying for intel on our capabilities and intentions out here. Lorne thought bitterly and given the look on the lawman’s face, it seemed as if he recognized what Lorne was thinking and his shrug and “what the hell did you expect?” look told him all he needed to know about his odds of getting any sympathy here. “Officer Artis asks if you’d like to go on a ride on their subterranean locomotive. He says the rail lines were completed last year and they’ve cut congestion in the streets down by fifty percent.”
A subway from the rag time era? Lorne was honestly fascinated; he’d always loved trains as a kid. “I would be honored but tell him we come on an urgent matter and that I need to confer with Colonel Makepeace.”
The customs officer frowned asking if everything was alright back home and if Lord Apophis had made any attempts to breach their gate or if Prince Horus had shown up for a round two.
“Luckily yes, We’ve never had a breach of our home gate and I suppose Prince Horus is as an honorable as everyone says he is, because he hasn’t attempted any hostility towards us.” Thank God for small favors he supposed. The hotel they were taken to was several blocks down the bustling street, he had offered to fetch a cab for them but Lorne wanted to take in more of the city. Evidently this planet had a population of under half a billion, but there were nine such cities on Rax-Narya and a trans continental railway that ferried people between them and the myriad of towns in two weeks. Given the pride in the man’s voice it was no doubt the pinnacle of their achievement, yet Lorne was somewhat skeptical of that, the tech level he saw in the city proper was a few decades ahead of that sort of travel time, trains of the 1880’s tended to take four or five days to make it across the US, though Lorne admittedly had no idea how large this continent was. Some other things raised his hackles, the city was too clean, there was no stench, no filth, no smoke from factories nor smog from the trolly’s or primitive cars. The steamboats themselves, didn’t really steam. Oh sure, they bellowed, and he could see steam but there was no smoke and the buildings themselves shimmered in the light of day akin to the way the Pyramids on Abydos did. He was starting to think maybe the SGC was right, and this was one gigantic con, but if so? Why?
The hotel he found Makepeace and the other’s at was something right out of the gilded age. Granite and marble everywhere, bird cages and indoor fountains, stained glass and the most sophisticated lighting he could see (and it was again oddly cool inside this Hotel.), Makepeace and his team were enjoying Dino-Buffalo steaks and sharing a bottle of bourbon with the Tollan representatives (Damnit! What if they have an allergic reaction!) saluting to the Colonel, Makepeace rose and walked forward. “Captain?”
“We need to talk sir…”
“Can it wait? We’re in the middle of sealing a trade deal.”
“No sir…General Landry’s orders.”
“Alright.” He turned and went into that used car salesmen speak that made Makepeace such a consummate bullshit artist and so effective on these trade deals. The Tollans were all too happy to agree to a recess and Makepeace sent them away with bottles of Cognac (Damnit sir!). Once the two were able to meet in the Colonel’s private suite the atmosphere tensed pretty quickly and within ten minutes there was a call to the Tollan representatives asking to speak with a member of the Curia their insistence sending ripples of concern through watchful eyes.
…………
Abydos
...........
Skara’s first impression of the elderly man who lay propped up in the Tau’Ri bed, his bald head and white whiskers, cold gray eyes was that he possessed the same imperiousness of Hammond of Texas and the same remote coldness of Amun Ra, though he detected none of the Godhead’s ruthlessness. Still, undercurrents of bitterness filled the young leader, a people so advanced out in the stars that they (as best as he could understand it.) could harness untold amounts of energies from the nothingness between matter and construct rescue ships larger than the mountain sized pyramids of Abydos in the middle of a cataclysm and yet they had done nothing to help his people from their bondage?
It was an unfair bitterness, Skara understood. Even if they did possess technology in excess of the System Lords from what Skara could infer from the imperial religion’s hyperbole and allegory that even the more advanced races of the cosmos were overwhelmed by numbers and ingenuity in the end. Still, Skara couldn’t help himself, he missed his sister and the young man in him wanted someone to blame other than cruel happenstance. -I can blame Apophis, but I can do nothing against him, I can blame Amunet, but I can’t reach her- He thought bitterly and felt a wave of shame as he realized how cowardly it was to be resentful of the Tollans. -I am not like that- Skara thought. Once it was clear that the man understood Imperial Standard, Skara introduced himself as Marshall of the Abydonian militia and then introduced General Henry Landry and Doctor Daniel Jackson of the Tau’Ri.
Perhaps that was a mistake because the man turned to the other two. “You’re the ones responsible for the death of Amun Ra? How did a species so primitive manage to destroy his pleasure barge?”
Landry shifted looking to Jackson. ‘Tell him, Ra ambushed our men and rigged a fission bomb with Naquadah, he intended to send it through the Stargate our soldiers tried to disarm it and failed, so with no other choice.”
“You used the Goa’uld matter conveyance technology to send the bomb to the Mandjet.” He finished, his Imperial standard was flawless and he spoke it slowly enough that Skara could pick up the dialectic differences and the subtle hints of his accent and the youth wasn’t sure if the man was doing that to be demean his host or out of courtesy. He laughed bitterly at that “It is understandable response, but one that may unleash a war upon this galaxy that puts us all in danger..You are reckless.”
“Never the less, we are here.”
“That is true.” He conceded to Landry through Jackson. “And I find that remarkable, that the parent species of the so many Lotar is as unsophisticated as you appear to be and yet you’ve already clearly taken advantage of all the gifts that have fallen to your lap.”
“Glad we could impress you.” O’Neill had sauntered into the room, Kasuf and Teal’c beside him and caught the tail end of Jackson’s translation not like he needed the translation for the tone the apparent Tollan leader conveyed.
“You impress me the same way the apes that infest the Galaxy courtesy of the System Lords impress me when one of their kind grabs a discarded hammer and uses it to club his rivals to death.” Came the sneering reply, that Jackson again relayed with a pleading look to Skara and
“Ya, ya and guess what? Our monkey asses saved yours so why don’t you show a little gratitude.” Came O’Neill’s response matching venom for venom.
“Colonel.” Landry stepped forward. “You’re right, we haven’t your level of technology, I’m an engineer and I think I understand well enough just how little I understand the gap here, but he has a point we did save your life.”
The man laughed. “You were no doubt exploring the Gate Network and no doubt came about Rax-Tolla by chance; an abandoned world in cataclysm and you set upon my world with the intent feast on its ruins and you expect me to show gratitude that in the midst of your grave robbing that you managed one act of decency?”
“The Tau’Ri are not buzzards!” Skara snapped angrily. “They help us even now, reclaim what was lost to us.”
Without a missing a beat the man snapped back “And tell me, when the Imperial Chamberlain returns from her sojourn and finally appoints a new Governor of your sector what will happen when they come to Abydos and find the presence of a foreign military and it’s..colonists.”
Skara went quiet, no one had actually considered that – because outside of Ra’s progress no one had seen any alien save for the ones the Tau’Ri brought back from Chulak. They had ignored Abydos for decades since the death of Sobek, why wouldn’t they merely continue to do the same? And perhaps they would have under normal circumstances, but times were not normal, and Skara felt a chill down his spine. Reflexively he responded with some declaration of an intent to drive the Serpent men from their world and he withered under the scornful gaze of the alien elder.
“This one isn’t qualified to speak for his people.”
“Are you?” Kasuf spoke for the first time, his tone even and calm betraying no hint of the indignant rage at the insult towards his son. “Did your people not ruin their world conducting an unsafe experiment?”
“He’s got a point.” Jack responded with a derisive laugh. Neither Jackson nor Skara bothered blunting his response.
Something flickered in the man’s eyes a mix of rage and guilt, and he turned towards General Landry. “With the assistance of your crude medical tools it will take three standard days for our bodies to fully repair themselves. I demand to the return of our equipment and release through the gate by then.”
After Jackson relayed the message Landry nodded his head. “We’re in agreement, you can have your stuff back, we’re aren’t thieves and we sure as hell aren’t grave robbers. We’ve already contacted Rax-Narya, I’m sure your more…primitive cousins will welcome you.”
The man’s eyes shifted towards Landry, and they narrowed again. “Where?”
Landry allowed himself a small smile, the shift was subtle, the surprise barely revealed on those hard features, but he caught it. -Got ya- “A planet that trades heavily with the System Lords, Peacekeepers and everyone else out there. They seem to be about a hundred years behind us, but it seems like you guys share the same language and naming convention for your planets.”
The man leaned back in his bed, coughing slightly. “General Landry, what are you insinuating?”
“Doctor Jackson, if you please?” Landry smiled amiable and Jackson shuffled as he stepped forward. “Well, the prefix Rax, I’ve been studying your language over the last few days, and it seems it’s a prefix that means “Colony of or founded by.” So, either Rax-Tolla and Rax-Narya were colonies of the same parent world…Or” He couldn’t even explain where the hunch came from or why both Teal’c and General Landry seemed to agree with it despite how illogical but.. He decided to go with it. “The same people.”
Something shifted in his eyes and the man almost smirked. “The manner in which you have worded that seems to imply you believe our original homeworld was lost.”
Jackson smiled ruffling his own hair nervously. “It’s a hunch.”
His reaction though, all but confirmed it. “My name is Omoc, I was governor General of Rax-Tolla most of our people evacuated to a new world outside of the Stargate network. I chose to be among the last to leave and was caught up in a hyperspace spasm. As head of state, I demand the release of my people as soon as we are able to depart.”
“Release to where?” Teal’c asked. “If your people are outside the network then you know as well as I do, if you are outside imperial space, it may take years for a vessel to find you, do you choose exile upon some primitive world beyond imperial space? If so in good conscience the Tau’Ri would not easily let you leave save with the promise of aid.”
“I have said all that I will say War Master.” Omoc, as he was called laid back in bed, placing his mask on and seemed to allow himself to drift back into unconsciousness.
The only thing that impressed Colonel O’Neill more than how easily Daniel and Skara could keep pace with the conversation enough to translate it all was how arrogant these people pretended to be and how much they sucked at lying.
Not the planet mumbo jumbo, but the guilt and shame that he thought he hid behind a mask of arrogance and rudeness.
O’Neill knew that look, but he thought he did it better back when he still bothered.
Before he stepped through the gate, before he met Daniel and Skara and his team.
What the hell did you people do old man?
O'Neill spars with the Tollan leader!
@Harlock @paulobrito @Gladiator Had to follow up the hype of the Nox with something at least half as good
Rax-Narya
.......
Captain Evan Lorne wasn’t exactly sure what he expected when he stepped through the gate, leading a team of nine rangers and two Abydonian interpreters. He knew that there was apparently a contradiction in intelligence on one of their potential trade partners, that the ruined yet highly advanced planet SG-1 discovered was Tollan. And that they now suspected there was some kind of op to conceal the true extent of their technological capabilities. He also knew his primary mission here was to contact the leaders of the Tollan colonies on Rax-Narya and inform them that some of their people didn’t make it out. Ostensibly this was just a rescue mission but given the seeming number of unknown variables here, it could have easily gone south and so he was told to watch himself.
Unknown number of variables, it seemed to Lorne like everyone assumed the Tollan were this supersecret advanced society that posed as comparatively primitive tradesmen when to him there seemed a much more logical explanation. Mainly, that the Tollan he encountered here were from a splinter group that broke off, maybe their version of a luddite movement or Amish? There were plenty of subcultures on earth that did that, the Lorne family ranch was on the outskirts of a commune of wealthy ex hippies who had abandoned the cities to form their own rural villages and while they had indoor plumbing and heating and cooling, most of their daily lives were spent living simply and rustically. They hunted and fished, farmed the way people farmed in the nineteenth century, dedicated their craftwork and art to something similar to the renaissance. They made whiskey and cider and were probably on their third generation living like that. He supposed by the standards of the Tollans the sprawling city that laid out before him and reminded him of old timey photos of New York City at the turn of the twentieth century would have been the equivalent.
It was a city on an inlet, he could smell the sea air and the docks loomed ahead of him with vessels that seemed to have rudimentary steam power and were those paddle wheels? The flags were different, the dress was different but if he didn’t know any better, he would have sworn that they had traveled through time instead of to another planet (Could a Stargate even do that?). The lead gate in the square shut off behind them and he took note of the fact that it was imposing and black with pink crystals in the chevrons, an uncomfortable reminder of the long reach of Apophis. There were six other gates, each resting one behind the other spaced out creating a wedge pattern. Those must have been the closed network Gates that Teal’c had mentioned, that could only go to one planet. Each one was enormous and color coded, greens and blues that reminded him of the Abydonian pyramids, one flanked by statues of Anubis and another by statues of Horus, another with a golden Eagle -Zeus- Lorne thought with a shudder, his interpreter having been one of the survivors of the Avalon raid. There were groups of laborers moving what looked like a cross between a buffalo and triceratops that was sleeping lazily in said crate (Evidently he was being sent to stud or was a prized animal as there was no fear there.) while a Kelownan heckled them for their laziness. Others from the class designated as Lotar seemed to bustle around them and Lorne felt uneasy. This was such a security risk, if anyone of these went back to any planet in King Cobra’s domain then the Serpent guard would be on their asses before sunset.
Ahead of them a group of men in blue uniform that reminded him of a city cop in a period drama walked over to them. The leader of the group identified himself as Artis and that he was one of the customs officers. He spoke space Egyptian/Imperial Standard damn well and didn’t seem to have trouble understand the accent or dialect of the Abydonians at all.
“He says he welcomes more of the Tau’Ri to Rax-Narya.”
Lorne nodded and then decided to break the ice “Tell him, his tone of voice suggests otherwise.”
The man frowned when this was relayed then shrugged.
“He says, there are many rumors flying around about your involvement in the ascension of Amun Ra” evidently. The imperial cult didn’t bill it as a death, merely that his body was destroyed, and his divine essence was FedExed to his proper place in control of all creation. “This makes him nervous for security reasons, it would look bad on and severely impact their commerce if the System Lords were to decide to embargo this world for conducting business with criminals from a hostile enemy power.”
Fair Lorne reasoned. “Then why hasn’t his government shown us the door?”
“He says, the Curia was given assurances that there would be no ramifications to Rax-Narya if they merely do business with the Tau’Ri but sign no treaty of alliance nor defend them in any future conflict. Evidently this O’Neill impressed Prince Horus enough to suspend hostilities”
Translation, they’re forgiving the Tollan and likely paying for intel on our capabilities and intentions out here. Lorne thought bitterly and given the look on the lawman’s face, it seemed as if he recognized what Lorne was thinking and his shrug and “what the hell did you expect?” look told him all he needed to know about his odds of getting any sympathy here. “Officer Artis asks if you’d like to go on a ride on their subterranean locomotive. He says the rail lines were completed last year and they’ve cut congestion in the streets down by fifty percent.”
A subway from the rag time era? Lorne was honestly fascinated; he’d always loved trains as a kid. “I would be honored but tell him we come on an urgent matter and that I need to confer with Colonel Makepeace.”
The customs officer frowned asking if everything was alright back home and if Lord Apophis had made any attempts to breach their gate or if Prince Horus had shown up for a round two.
“Luckily yes, We’ve never had a breach of our home gate and I suppose Prince Horus is as an honorable as everyone says he is, because he hasn’t attempted any hostility towards us.” Thank God for small favors he supposed. The hotel they were taken to was several blocks down the bustling street, he had offered to fetch a cab for them but Lorne wanted to take in more of the city. Evidently this planet had a population of under half a billion, but there were nine such cities on Rax-Narya and a trans continental railway that ferried people between them and the myriad of towns in two weeks. Given the pride in the man’s voice it was no doubt the pinnacle of their achievement, yet Lorne was somewhat skeptical of that, the tech level he saw in the city proper was a few decades ahead of that sort of travel time, trains of the 1880’s tended to take four or five days to make it across the US, though Lorne admittedly had no idea how large this continent was. Some other things raised his hackles, the city was too clean, there was no stench, no filth, no smoke from factories nor smog from the trolly’s or primitive cars. The steamboats themselves, didn’t really steam. Oh sure, they bellowed, and he could see steam but there was no smoke and the buildings themselves shimmered in the light of day akin to the way the Pyramids on Abydos did. He was starting to think maybe the SGC was right, and this was one gigantic con, but if so? Why?
The hotel he found Makepeace and the other’s at was something right out of the gilded age. Granite and marble everywhere, bird cages and indoor fountains, stained glass and the most sophisticated lighting he could see (and it was again oddly cool inside this Hotel.), Makepeace and his team were enjoying Dino-Buffalo steaks and sharing a bottle of bourbon with the Tollan representatives (Damnit! What if they have an allergic reaction!) saluting to the Colonel, Makepeace rose and walked forward. “Captain?”
“We need to talk sir…”
“Can it wait? We’re in the middle of sealing a trade deal.”
“No sir…General Landry’s orders.”
“Alright.” He turned and went into that used car salesmen speak that made Makepeace such a consummate bullshit artist and so effective on these trade deals. The Tollans were all too happy to agree to a recess and Makepeace sent them away with bottles of Cognac (Damnit sir!). Once the two were able to meet in the Colonel’s private suite the atmosphere tensed pretty quickly and within ten minutes there was a call to the Tollan representatives asking to speak with a member of the Curia their insistence sending ripples of concern through watchful eyes.
…………
Abydos
...........
Skara’s first impression of the elderly man who lay propped up in the Tau’Ri bed, his bald head and white whiskers, cold gray eyes was that he possessed the same imperiousness of Hammond of Texas and the same remote coldness of Amun Ra, though he detected none of the Godhead’s ruthlessness. Still, undercurrents of bitterness filled the young leader, a people so advanced out in the stars that they (as best as he could understand it.) could harness untold amounts of energies from the nothingness between matter and construct rescue ships larger than the mountain sized pyramids of Abydos in the middle of a cataclysm and yet they had done nothing to help his people from their bondage?
It was an unfair bitterness, Skara understood. Even if they did possess technology in excess of the System Lords from what Skara could infer from the imperial religion’s hyperbole and allegory that even the more advanced races of the cosmos were overwhelmed by numbers and ingenuity in the end. Still, Skara couldn’t help himself, he missed his sister and the young man in him wanted someone to blame other than cruel happenstance. -I can blame Apophis, but I can do nothing against him, I can blame Amunet, but I can’t reach her- He thought bitterly and felt a wave of shame as he realized how cowardly it was to be resentful of the Tollans. -I am not like that- Skara thought. Once it was clear that the man understood Imperial Standard, Skara introduced himself as Marshall of the Abydonian militia and then introduced General Henry Landry and Doctor Daniel Jackson of the Tau’Ri.
Perhaps that was a mistake because the man turned to the other two. “You’re the ones responsible for the death of Amun Ra? How did a species so primitive manage to destroy his pleasure barge?”
Landry shifted looking to Jackson. ‘Tell him, Ra ambushed our men and rigged a fission bomb with Naquadah, he intended to send it through the Stargate our soldiers tried to disarm it and failed, so with no other choice.”
“You used the Goa’uld matter conveyance technology to send the bomb to the Mandjet.” He finished, his Imperial standard was flawless and he spoke it slowly enough that Skara could pick up the dialectic differences and the subtle hints of his accent and the youth wasn’t sure if the man was doing that to be demean his host or out of courtesy. He laughed bitterly at that “It is understandable response, but one that may unleash a war upon this galaxy that puts us all in danger..You are reckless.”
“Never the less, we are here.”
“That is true.” He conceded to Landry through Jackson. “And I find that remarkable, that the parent species of the so many Lotar is as unsophisticated as you appear to be and yet you’ve already clearly taken advantage of all the gifts that have fallen to your lap.”
“Glad we could impress you.” O’Neill had sauntered into the room, Kasuf and Teal’c beside him and caught the tail end of Jackson’s translation not like he needed the translation for the tone the apparent Tollan leader conveyed.
“You impress me the same way the apes that infest the Galaxy courtesy of the System Lords impress me when one of their kind grabs a discarded hammer and uses it to club his rivals to death.” Came the sneering reply, that Jackson again relayed with a pleading look to Skara and
“Ya, ya and guess what? Our monkey asses saved yours so why don’t you show a little gratitude.” Came O’Neill’s response matching venom for venom.
“Colonel.” Landry stepped forward. “You’re right, we haven’t your level of technology, I’m an engineer and I think I understand well enough just how little I understand the gap here, but he has a point we did save your life.”
The man laughed. “You were no doubt exploring the Gate Network and no doubt came about Rax-Tolla by chance; an abandoned world in cataclysm and you set upon my world with the intent feast on its ruins and you expect me to show gratitude that in the midst of your grave robbing that you managed one act of decency?”
“The Tau’Ri are not buzzards!” Skara snapped angrily. “They help us even now, reclaim what was lost to us.”
Without a missing a beat the man snapped back “And tell me, when the Imperial Chamberlain returns from her sojourn and finally appoints a new Governor of your sector what will happen when they come to Abydos and find the presence of a foreign military and it’s..colonists.”
Skara went quiet, no one had actually considered that – because outside of Ra’s progress no one had seen any alien save for the ones the Tau’Ri brought back from Chulak. They had ignored Abydos for decades since the death of Sobek, why wouldn’t they merely continue to do the same? And perhaps they would have under normal circumstances, but times were not normal, and Skara felt a chill down his spine. Reflexively he responded with some declaration of an intent to drive the Serpent men from their world and he withered under the scornful gaze of the alien elder.
“This one isn’t qualified to speak for his people.”
“Are you?” Kasuf spoke for the first time, his tone even and calm betraying no hint of the indignant rage at the insult towards his son. “Did your people not ruin their world conducting an unsafe experiment?”
“He’s got a point.” Jack responded with a derisive laugh. Neither Jackson nor Skara bothered blunting his response.
Something flickered in the man’s eyes a mix of rage and guilt, and he turned towards General Landry. “With the assistance of your crude medical tools it will take three standard days for our bodies to fully repair themselves. I demand to the return of our equipment and release through the gate by then.”
After Jackson relayed the message Landry nodded his head. “We’re in agreement, you can have your stuff back, we’re aren’t thieves and we sure as hell aren’t grave robbers. We’ve already contacted Rax-Narya, I’m sure your more…primitive cousins will welcome you.”
The man’s eyes shifted towards Landry, and they narrowed again. “Where?”
Landry allowed himself a small smile, the shift was subtle, the surprise barely revealed on those hard features, but he caught it. -Got ya- “A planet that trades heavily with the System Lords, Peacekeepers and everyone else out there. They seem to be about a hundred years behind us, but it seems like you guys share the same language and naming convention for your planets.”
The man leaned back in his bed, coughing slightly. “General Landry, what are you insinuating?”
“Doctor Jackson, if you please?” Landry smiled amiable and Jackson shuffled as he stepped forward. “Well, the prefix Rax, I’ve been studying your language over the last few days, and it seems it’s a prefix that means “Colony of or founded by.” So, either Rax-Tolla and Rax-Narya were colonies of the same parent world…Or” He couldn’t even explain where the hunch came from or why both Teal’c and General Landry seemed to agree with it despite how illogical but.. He decided to go with it. “The same people.”
Something shifted in his eyes and the man almost smirked. “The manner in which you have worded that seems to imply you believe our original homeworld was lost.”
Jackson smiled ruffling his own hair nervously. “It’s a hunch.”
His reaction though, all but confirmed it. “My name is Omoc, I was governor General of Rax-Tolla most of our people evacuated to a new world outside of the Stargate network. I chose to be among the last to leave and was caught up in a hyperspace spasm. As head of state, I demand the release of my people as soon as we are able to depart.”
“Release to where?” Teal’c asked. “If your people are outside the network then you know as well as I do, if you are outside imperial space, it may take years for a vessel to find you, do you choose exile upon some primitive world beyond imperial space? If so in good conscience the Tau’Ri would not easily let you leave save with the promise of aid.”
“I have said all that I will say War Master.” Omoc, as he was called laid back in bed, placing his mask on and seemed to allow himself to drift back into unconsciousness.
The only thing that impressed Colonel O’Neill more than how easily Daniel and Skara could keep pace with the conversation enough to translate it all was how arrogant these people pretended to be and how much they sucked at lying.
Not the planet mumbo jumbo, but the guilt and shame that he thought he hid behind a mask of arrogance and rudeness.
O’Neill knew that look, but he thought he did it better back when he still bothered.
Before he stepped through the gate, before he met Daniel and Skara and his team.
What the hell did you people do old man?
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I am loving this! I'm interested to see where this new take on the Tollen goes.
"Indeed."
THEY'RE MAK'N THE UNAS GAY!
Alright, next chapter up, Drey'ac wakes up and has the mother of all hangovers, Colonel Makepeace breaks bread with a familiar face and more questions arise than answers because lolTollan.
given the nature of the depths of this enigma..I thought the threadmark fit
Nineveh –
She was dead, she was certain of that. She had to be, the explosion had blown out the bulkhead and blew her and a hundred tons of debris out through windows that were themselves tough enough to pulpify her flesh from impact. More besides, she stopped feeling everything the moment that she was blown out into open space. One of the few things she remembered after that was a reassuring voice, the voice of the child sustaining her and maturing inside of her, assuring her that she would live. The next thing she felt was an immense psychic field that she knew was essentially holding her brutalized flesh to her bones, keeping her from quite literally coming apart along seams created by the impact. The next sensation was a kind of pain that should have caused her heart to fail from the shock, but it was quietly numbed. She couldn’t remember much after that, except she kept mentally apologizing to Teal’c and her sons, lamenting that she would have no children neither from her own womb or cultivated in her pouch. A soft laughter and then something akin to cool fluids.
Jaffa couldn’t survive inside a resurrection chamber; the immortality technology of the system lords allegedly would destroy their cellular structure and the technology was strictly regulated any way. But they did have the best things, a Prim’tah that could repair almost any damage so long as enough of the body remained intact and enough time was given and if the injuries were too extensive there were these wondrous combat pods designed by Athena and Nerus that were filled with a fluid that was essentially neutral proteins that could be assembled into the genetic material of whoever was placed inside there. Not that such technology was often used, any injuries extensive enough to warrant such technology often meant the Jaffa in question was dead already and needed to be mopped off the floor by the nearest ill-tempered Lotar Street sweeper. But for some reason she had not only survived the explosion and the vacuum of space, but also survived long enough to be put into one of these pods.
She floated there, she knew not how long, but occasionally her conscience would stir and she would see her “son” resting in a healing jar near her, a pair of feminine hands on either side, glowing faintly. That couldn’t have been Ba’al’s wife, the Peer and Goa’uld queen Nanshe, the last living daughter of Tiamat and the sole survivor of the house of Illu (Well, there were rumors Ba’al finally got her pregnant.) who had been amongst the first to join Ouranos and Tartarus and their rebellion. For while she was a gifted Peer, her powers were half that of what Lord Ba’al’s were and she definitely didn’t have the ability to heal without a ribbon device, only Ra and Hathor possessed that power. Besides, she had never seen Nanshe not since arriving. But why would Hathor be here?! Especially since they’d likely end up on opposite sides should the worst happen?
These questions remained unanswered until she woke to the sensation of her “son” sliding back into her pouch. That would explain why she felt so alone, she hoped that Ba’al kept his word and implanted her with one of his sentient offspring, she wasn’t sure she could go back to a lobotomized Prim’tah. The solitude was more than she could bare, and it was only a few seconds. When she woke, she found herself wincing as cold air drifted across brand new skin and she thanked her son mentally as he began to focus on fishing the job the pod started. Straightening out all the new tissue and mending the microfractures in her bones and the broken capillaries. She let out a disjointed grunt and realized her “son” was likely busy enthusiastically regrowing her vocal cords. Which in and of itself was a curious sensation, especially hearing herself go from hisses, to rasps, to grunts to finally being able to form words.
Which were curses of annoyance when she touched her head and realized how short her hair was. -It must have been burned off along with most of my scalp- that had been regrown by the chamber and her “son” would likely get to work on rapidly growing out her hair in a day or so. She sat, naked being offered a robe by an unknown hand and she muttered thanks before sliding it on and wincing at the texture. “It is amusing.” She rasped, chuckling softly, or wheezing softly as those damned organs were still new. “I’ve been involved in combat, test flying and other dangerous ventures in space since I was a girl of ten, yet it’s a terrorist attack on a space station orbiting a Crown world that exposes me to vacuum.”
“I would call it irony, but in truth we’ve grown arrogant and complacent enough that I am far too ashamed to do so.” That chorus of voices, the hymnal speech, the ancient rippling power and the confident regality of it. Breath caught in Drey’ac’s throat, and she whirred in the general direction of the sound and looked aghast when she opened new eyes to find the eerie beauty of Sekhmet-Hathor former empress and chamberlain of the entirety of the Imperium of the system lords and from how wet her silken sleeves and hands looked, she had evidently been the one to put her “son” back inside the Fleet Captain and likely helped extract her from the pod..
Ja’mah!
She was at once mortified and honored and she scrambled off the medical table and crumbled onto one knee as best she could when her nerves were still remembering how they worked. “Majestic Eminence! Forgive me, I did not know you were here.” She wheezed out.
“I needed to borrow Lord Ba’al’s resurrection chamber. I believe this is the first time I’ve used one since the battle of Arnes before the Jaffa race even existed.” There was a light hint of amusement in the woman’s voice. “Child, you’ve no reason to be embarrassed, minding the foster mother of my nephew is hardly demeaning to my station..Besides..you protected young Hrakar here from Amunet. That, scheming little whore has butchered so many of my nieces and nephews that I am bereft of an entire side of my family.”
No one could miss the agony in her words, nor the deep, dark rage that had destroyed an entire species for far less of a wound. Hather was beautiful, noble and kind, but she could be a monster when she felt so inclined and Drey’ac almost wanted to fear her as she would have feared Amun-Ra, as she feared Apophis, but something stopped her. -She regrets it, what she did to the Set’yim- Drey’ac thought, even now she exerted enormous effort on controlling that dark side that threatened to unleash itself towards Amunet even if none could blame the former Empress if she tore the little lunatic apart. “I wish, that I could have done more, Chanyu and Aqet were good to me, majestic eminence and their children did not deserve that.. The great lord Apophis was good to me once as well.” Mighty Hathor nodded in seeming gratitude and walked towards Drey’ac helping the woman stand and to the Jaffa’s shock providing her a shoulder to lean on while her body oriented itself. “We will have a reckoning for those whom we love Fleet Captain, this I declare.” It was uttered in a reassuring whisper but a promise like that, uttered in the tone of finality and power that the Chamberlain had uttered it came out as a divine edict, a proclamation of fate.
This will happen. We shall be whole again.
It was inspiring and filled her with a warrior’s resolve, and she nodded silently, turning her head as Hathor pivoted to gaze at the other two figures present.
Ba’al sat silently, observing the interaction between the two, he had one of his usual Cheshire like smiles on his face. Beside him, a woman with blue tinted skin and blood red eyes, slightly pointed ears and hair the deepest shade of purple Drey’ac had ever seen stood, looming over Lord Ba’al standing nearly a foot taller than he. Nanshe, it had to be for it was said the host she had taken after the second battle of Cimmeria was part or nearly half Nebari, mostly of human stock but there was no mistaking the blue and turquoise coloring. By all accounts their marriage was controversial, imposed by Amun-Ra as part of whatever secret dealing the emperor and the scientist turned tycoon had worked out in the shadows. Ba’al was a new System Lord, young and his extreme wealth (Which existed before he gained control of the most lucrative Naquadah mines in the known universe.) came from a bloodline that none could verify survived the Ori rebellion and many suspected he was an illegitimate son of Ra passed off for whatever reason and yet the glow of his eyes was entirely different. This, mystery and his age meant the marriage and inheriting of Tiamat’s old domain was seen as a grave insult to some. Ba’al had won most of his detractors over with his mix of loyalty to the Imperium and ingenuity, but everyone assumed his marriage to Nanshe was a loveless one. It didn’t help that Nanshe was one of the earliest Peers to be born on Tau’Ri and thus was tens of thousands of years older than her husband. No one assumed that could work given the age gap alone made for entirely different psychology.
Yet the way she stood beside him, the way their fingers intertwined, the subtleties of their body language. Drey’ac had been married for a century, she knew the body language of unhappy couples and happy couples. Every court rumor about them was evidently utterly false and she immediately wondered if that wasn’t by design.
The slight smirk from Nanshe confirmed it. They’re both dangerously clever -Nothing in the history books or mental profiles I’ve read about Nanshe suggested this, to have concealed her true nature so well for so long- “Majesties…I had not known.”
Nanshe spoke up now, her voice a series of husky chanters, all women all of varying ages all bemused. All psychically instilling her with a desire to laugh at herself. “Husband, this one is a traditionalist.”
“Most conservative.” Ba’al remarked. “I’ve been trying to get her to address me by name in private for months. But alas, she always says “things must be as they are” yet paradoxically is at the forefront of much social change courtesy of her husband.”
“You’re teasing the poor woman.” Hather admonished them looking to Drey’ac “Teasing a woman who became a nine time combat ace in a broken down death glider during the Titan’s rebellion, defeated ten consecutive Scarren armadas and destroyed their empire in a week. Who hunts pirates the way my son and Herakles hunt beasts.” Hathor made a tsk, tsking sound. “You and Teal’c were an unstoppable duo, I am truly sorry our empire failed you both to the degree that he felt he needed to do what he did.”
She wasn’t about to cry in front of the mother of the greatest civilization that is, was or ever would be and so Drey’ac steeled herself and promised to give thanks later, for the magnitude of her words and she stood at last on her own. “With, all due respect and gratitude majestic eminence, I do not believe you are here for that reason.”
Hathor’s eyes glowed a soft pink and she inclined her head lightly in confirmation. “No, it is over that which you and Admiral Crais discovered…what you dare not speculate to.”
She swallowed. “That a peer is attempting to cause instability within the empire.”
Hathor nodded ever so slightly. “And how your lord here had begun his own investigation parallel to my own.”
Oh, Ja’mah.
She understands now….
Her eyes darted to Ba’al you’re the most dangerous sentient in the universe aren’t you my lord?
He seemed to smile at her thoughts and still she couldn’t bring herself to hate or mistrust him.
Damn him!
……………
Rax-Narya
Colonel Makepeace spent several years under the tutelage of General West and his old clubhouse within the NID, from congresswoman Kensey all the way to several former Presidents, to Harry Maybourne, Robert Makepeace had known his fair share of liars, killers and despots and he had a sinking feeling the tall, gaunt woman who appeared to be in her mid-sixties was one such woman. Grand Regent Travell wore a uniform that reminded him of old photos of Augusto Pinochet for some reason. The Blues, the reds, the way her boots shone in the light from both the window and the lamps. From her figure, he could also tell she was a looker when she was younger which only added to the imperiousness and aloofness. Grand Regent of what? The planet? He’d already met the Governor General.
His Abydonian interpreter said that she was the head of state born to an inherited position, as the royal bloodline of the Tollan race was lost, her family assumed command until such time as it could be found or some other such nonsense that sounded more like science fantasy than realpolitik. She presided over the Curia, which was the governing body of all Tollan worlds, which again made him wonder if Lorne was right about his assessment that this, gilded age like steampunk city was pure astroturf. Her gray eyes gazed down at the tablet as she flipped through the images displayed therein, showing an oddly intuitive grasp of the technology she had supposedly never seen (In his experience the snake men liked projecting holograms a lot.) Though, what surprised Makepeace more than anything was the look of sorrow buried below a nonplussed expression.
She had expected this.
“So, it finally happened.” Travell let out a sigh that was almost a perfect facsimile of disappointment.
“Pardon?” Captain Lorne asked, surprised by her response.
“They destroyed themselves, or one of them did.” She turned to look out the window, gazing at the ships departing the harbor in their almost perfect imitation of a steamboat’s maneuvering. “Perhaps they all did and this Rax-Tolla as you called it was the only one that had a gate.” Sensing the look of incredulity on Makepeace’s face the woman smiled what might have been a sad smile. “The main Tollan line is a very advanced race, five thousand years ago our ancestors broke off from them, led by our sovereign they departed the core world of our people in an arc and settled on a world that was several dozen lightyears farther from the border with imperial space than it is now. Our ancestors believed Tollan society had grown, ossified, arrogant. We mastered technology to such a degree that we wanted for nothing and were safe from everything. But that safety became a form of slavery I suppose. Our ancestors believed they forgot what it was to innovate, to grow and so they sought to challenge themselves by starting civilization all over again.”
It was completely absurd, but it was just crazy enough to be true Makepeace realized, which was the problem. “Minus indoor plumbing and cooling anyway?” he asked from his position seated in a rather comfortable leather chair in the ornate office room they had been escorted into for this conversation. As the Abydonian translated the woman laughed.
“Well, you cannot blame us for that Colonel, we’re not perfect, we do have vices.”
Don’t we all, Makepeace thought.
“With all their advanced technology why didn’t they just meet the Goa’uld on an even footing?” Lorne piped in, the interpreter showing slight signs of having trouble keeping up with three separate people.
The Grand Regent’s smile faltered slightly. “The Imperium is enormous and that which it does not rule outright is tied to it either culturally or economically, everywhere we go across this local Galactic cluster the imperial religion holds sway on worlds both primitive and advanced. Across kingdoms in the stars who have never seen a Goa’uld yet still they pray to the mightiest of that race. The world our ancestors left was isolationist and feared cross cultural contamination.”
Well, that might have been the first truth she told, and it was a half-truth. “But not you guys huh?”
“No, not us.” Travell responded through the overtaxed interpreter. “Colonel Makepeace these refuges are welcome on Rax-Narya, though I doubt they’ll wish it. If they wish asylum with you, we will not oppose it.”
The Colonel thanked her and as they began to depart she called back and asked the interpreter bid them turn over all Tollan technology taken from the refugees to the planetary customs officers upon their return. “It wouldn’t do us much good, but it has been Tollan law for all of their existence that their technology must never leave their hands. It would be..an insult to their memory to do otherwise.”
Makepeace promised her he would pass that along to his superiors and upon leaving he looked to Lorne as they walked through the marble hallways. “What do you think?”
“Off the record sir?”
“Roger that”
“She’s full of shit sir.”
“Yep”
Something was rotten here.
given the nature of the depths of this enigma..I thought the threadmark fit
Nineveh –
She was dead, she was certain of that. She had to be, the explosion had blown out the bulkhead and blew her and a hundred tons of debris out through windows that were themselves tough enough to pulpify her flesh from impact. More besides, she stopped feeling everything the moment that she was blown out into open space. One of the few things she remembered after that was a reassuring voice, the voice of the child sustaining her and maturing inside of her, assuring her that she would live. The next thing she felt was an immense psychic field that she knew was essentially holding her brutalized flesh to her bones, keeping her from quite literally coming apart along seams created by the impact. The next sensation was a kind of pain that should have caused her heart to fail from the shock, but it was quietly numbed. She couldn’t remember much after that, except she kept mentally apologizing to Teal’c and her sons, lamenting that she would have no children neither from her own womb or cultivated in her pouch. A soft laughter and then something akin to cool fluids.
Jaffa couldn’t survive inside a resurrection chamber; the immortality technology of the system lords allegedly would destroy their cellular structure and the technology was strictly regulated any way. But they did have the best things, a Prim’tah that could repair almost any damage so long as enough of the body remained intact and enough time was given and if the injuries were too extensive there were these wondrous combat pods designed by Athena and Nerus that were filled with a fluid that was essentially neutral proteins that could be assembled into the genetic material of whoever was placed inside there. Not that such technology was often used, any injuries extensive enough to warrant such technology often meant the Jaffa in question was dead already and needed to be mopped off the floor by the nearest ill-tempered Lotar Street sweeper. But for some reason she had not only survived the explosion and the vacuum of space, but also survived long enough to be put into one of these pods.
She floated there, she knew not how long, but occasionally her conscience would stir and she would see her “son” resting in a healing jar near her, a pair of feminine hands on either side, glowing faintly. That couldn’t have been Ba’al’s wife, the Peer and Goa’uld queen Nanshe, the last living daughter of Tiamat and the sole survivor of the house of Illu (Well, there were rumors Ba’al finally got her pregnant.) who had been amongst the first to join Ouranos and Tartarus and their rebellion. For while she was a gifted Peer, her powers were half that of what Lord Ba’al’s were and she definitely didn’t have the ability to heal without a ribbon device, only Ra and Hathor possessed that power. Besides, she had never seen Nanshe not since arriving. But why would Hathor be here?! Especially since they’d likely end up on opposite sides should the worst happen?
These questions remained unanswered until she woke to the sensation of her “son” sliding back into her pouch. That would explain why she felt so alone, she hoped that Ba’al kept his word and implanted her with one of his sentient offspring, she wasn’t sure she could go back to a lobotomized Prim’tah. The solitude was more than she could bare, and it was only a few seconds. When she woke, she found herself wincing as cold air drifted across brand new skin and she thanked her son mentally as he began to focus on fishing the job the pod started. Straightening out all the new tissue and mending the microfractures in her bones and the broken capillaries. She let out a disjointed grunt and realized her “son” was likely busy enthusiastically regrowing her vocal cords. Which in and of itself was a curious sensation, especially hearing herself go from hisses, to rasps, to grunts to finally being able to form words.
Which were curses of annoyance when she touched her head and realized how short her hair was. -It must have been burned off along with most of my scalp- that had been regrown by the chamber and her “son” would likely get to work on rapidly growing out her hair in a day or so. She sat, naked being offered a robe by an unknown hand and she muttered thanks before sliding it on and wincing at the texture. “It is amusing.” She rasped, chuckling softly, or wheezing softly as those damned organs were still new. “I’ve been involved in combat, test flying and other dangerous ventures in space since I was a girl of ten, yet it’s a terrorist attack on a space station orbiting a Crown world that exposes me to vacuum.”
“I would call it irony, but in truth we’ve grown arrogant and complacent enough that I am far too ashamed to do so.” That chorus of voices, the hymnal speech, the ancient rippling power and the confident regality of it. Breath caught in Drey’ac’s throat, and she whirred in the general direction of the sound and looked aghast when she opened new eyes to find the eerie beauty of Sekhmet-Hathor former empress and chamberlain of the entirety of the Imperium of the system lords and from how wet her silken sleeves and hands looked, she had evidently been the one to put her “son” back inside the Fleet Captain and likely helped extract her from the pod..
Ja’mah!
She was at once mortified and honored and she scrambled off the medical table and crumbled onto one knee as best she could when her nerves were still remembering how they worked. “Majestic Eminence! Forgive me, I did not know you were here.” She wheezed out.
“I needed to borrow Lord Ba’al’s resurrection chamber. I believe this is the first time I’ve used one since the battle of Arnes before the Jaffa race even existed.” There was a light hint of amusement in the woman’s voice. “Child, you’ve no reason to be embarrassed, minding the foster mother of my nephew is hardly demeaning to my station..Besides..you protected young Hrakar here from Amunet. That, scheming little whore has butchered so many of my nieces and nephews that I am bereft of an entire side of my family.”
No one could miss the agony in her words, nor the deep, dark rage that had destroyed an entire species for far less of a wound. Hather was beautiful, noble and kind, but she could be a monster when she felt so inclined and Drey’ac almost wanted to fear her as she would have feared Amun-Ra, as she feared Apophis, but something stopped her. -She regrets it, what she did to the Set’yim- Drey’ac thought, even now she exerted enormous effort on controlling that dark side that threatened to unleash itself towards Amunet even if none could blame the former Empress if she tore the little lunatic apart. “I wish, that I could have done more, Chanyu and Aqet were good to me, majestic eminence and their children did not deserve that.. The great lord Apophis was good to me once as well.” Mighty Hathor nodded in seeming gratitude and walked towards Drey’ac helping the woman stand and to the Jaffa’s shock providing her a shoulder to lean on while her body oriented itself. “We will have a reckoning for those whom we love Fleet Captain, this I declare.” It was uttered in a reassuring whisper but a promise like that, uttered in the tone of finality and power that the Chamberlain had uttered it came out as a divine edict, a proclamation of fate.
This will happen. We shall be whole again.
It was inspiring and filled her with a warrior’s resolve, and she nodded silently, turning her head as Hathor pivoted to gaze at the other two figures present.
Ba’al sat silently, observing the interaction between the two, he had one of his usual Cheshire like smiles on his face. Beside him, a woman with blue tinted skin and blood red eyes, slightly pointed ears and hair the deepest shade of purple Drey’ac had ever seen stood, looming over Lord Ba’al standing nearly a foot taller than he. Nanshe, it had to be for it was said the host she had taken after the second battle of Cimmeria was part or nearly half Nebari, mostly of human stock but there was no mistaking the blue and turquoise coloring. By all accounts their marriage was controversial, imposed by Amun-Ra as part of whatever secret dealing the emperor and the scientist turned tycoon had worked out in the shadows. Ba’al was a new System Lord, young and his extreme wealth (Which existed before he gained control of the most lucrative Naquadah mines in the known universe.) came from a bloodline that none could verify survived the Ori rebellion and many suspected he was an illegitimate son of Ra passed off for whatever reason and yet the glow of his eyes was entirely different. This, mystery and his age meant the marriage and inheriting of Tiamat’s old domain was seen as a grave insult to some. Ba’al had won most of his detractors over with his mix of loyalty to the Imperium and ingenuity, but everyone assumed his marriage to Nanshe was a loveless one. It didn’t help that Nanshe was one of the earliest Peers to be born on Tau’Ri and thus was tens of thousands of years older than her husband. No one assumed that could work given the age gap alone made for entirely different psychology.
Yet the way she stood beside him, the way their fingers intertwined, the subtleties of their body language. Drey’ac had been married for a century, she knew the body language of unhappy couples and happy couples. Every court rumor about them was evidently utterly false and she immediately wondered if that wasn’t by design.
The slight smirk from Nanshe confirmed it. They’re both dangerously clever -Nothing in the history books or mental profiles I’ve read about Nanshe suggested this, to have concealed her true nature so well for so long- “Majesties…I had not known.”
Nanshe spoke up now, her voice a series of husky chanters, all women all of varying ages all bemused. All psychically instilling her with a desire to laugh at herself. “Husband, this one is a traditionalist.”
“Most conservative.” Ba’al remarked. “I’ve been trying to get her to address me by name in private for months. But alas, she always says “things must be as they are” yet paradoxically is at the forefront of much social change courtesy of her husband.”
“You’re teasing the poor woman.” Hather admonished them looking to Drey’ac “Teasing a woman who became a nine time combat ace in a broken down death glider during the Titan’s rebellion, defeated ten consecutive Scarren armadas and destroyed their empire in a week. Who hunts pirates the way my son and Herakles hunt beasts.” Hathor made a tsk, tsking sound. “You and Teal’c were an unstoppable duo, I am truly sorry our empire failed you both to the degree that he felt he needed to do what he did.”
She wasn’t about to cry in front of the mother of the greatest civilization that is, was or ever would be and so Drey’ac steeled herself and promised to give thanks later, for the magnitude of her words and she stood at last on her own. “With, all due respect and gratitude majestic eminence, I do not believe you are here for that reason.”
Hathor’s eyes glowed a soft pink and she inclined her head lightly in confirmation. “No, it is over that which you and Admiral Crais discovered…what you dare not speculate to.”
She swallowed. “That a peer is attempting to cause instability within the empire.”
Hathor nodded ever so slightly. “And how your lord here had begun his own investigation parallel to my own.”
Oh, Ja’mah.
She understands now….
Her eyes darted to Ba’al you’re the most dangerous sentient in the universe aren’t you my lord?
He seemed to smile at her thoughts and still she couldn’t bring herself to hate or mistrust him.
Damn him!
……………
Rax-Narya
Colonel Makepeace spent several years under the tutelage of General West and his old clubhouse within the NID, from congresswoman Kensey all the way to several former Presidents, to Harry Maybourne, Robert Makepeace had known his fair share of liars, killers and despots and he had a sinking feeling the tall, gaunt woman who appeared to be in her mid-sixties was one such woman. Grand Regent Travell wore a uniform that reminded him of old photos of Augusto Pinochet for some reason. The Blues, the reds, the way her boots shone in the light from both the window and the lamps. From her figure, he could also tell she was a looker when she was younger which only added to the imperiousness and aloofness. Grand Regent of what? The planet? He’d already met the Governor General.
His Abydonian interpreter said that she was the head of state born to an inherited position, as the royal bloodline of the Tollan race was lost, her family assumed command until such time as it could be found or some other such nonsense that sounded more like science fantasy than realpolitik. She presided over the Curia, which was the governing body of all Tollan worlds, which again made him wonder if Lorne was right about his assessment that this, gilded age like steampunk city was pure astroturf. Her gray eyes gazed down at the tablet as she flipped through the images displayed therein, showing an oddly intuitive grasp of the technology she had supposedly never seen (In his experience the snake men liked projecting holograms a lot.) Though, what surprised Makepeace more than anything was the look of sorrow buried below a nonplussed expression.
She had expected this.
“So, it finally happened.” Travell let out a sigh that was almost a perfect facsimile of disappointment.
“Pardon?” Captain Lorne asked, surprised by her response.
“They destroyed themselves, or one of them did.” She turned to look out the window, gazing at the ships departing the harbor in their almost perfect imitation of a steamboat’s maneuvering. “Perhaps they all did and this Rax-Tolla as you called it was the only one that had a gate.” Sensing the look of incredulity on Makepeace’s face the woman smiled what might have been a sad smile. “The main Tollan line is a very advanced race, five thousand years ago our ancestors broke off from them, led by our sovereign they departed the core world of our people in an arc and settled on a world that was several dozen lightyears farther from the border with imperial space than it is now. Our ancestors believed Tollan society had grown, ossified, arrogant. We mastered technology to such a degree that we wanted for nothing and were safe from everything. But that safety became a form of slavery I suppose. Our ancestors believed they forgot what it was to innovate, to grow and so they sought to challenge themselves by starting civilization all over again.”
It was completely absurd, but it was just crazy enough to be true Makepeace realized, which was the problem. “Minus indoor plumbing and cooling anyway?” he asked from his position seated in a rather comfortable leather chair in the ornate office room they had been escorted into for this conversation. As the Abydonian translated the woman laughed.
“Well, you cannot blame us for that Colonel, we’re not perfect, we do have vices.”
Don’t we all, Makepeace thought.
“With all their advanced technology why didn’t they just meet the Goa’uld on an even footing?” Lorne piped in, the interpreter showing slight signs of having trouble keeping up with three separate people.
The Grand Regent’s smile faltered slightly. “The Imperium is enormous and that which it does not rule outright is tied to it either culturally or economically, everywhere we go across this local Galactic cluster the imperial religion holds sway on worlds both primitive and advanced. Across kingdoms in the stars who have never seen a Goa’uld yet still they pray to the mightiest of that race. The world our ancestors left was isolationist and feared cross cultural contamination.”
Well, that might have been the first truth she told, and it was a half-truth. “But not you guys huh?”
“No, not us.” Travell responded through the overtaxed interpreter. “Colonel Makepeace these refuges are welcome on Rax-Narya, though I doubt they’ll wish it. If they wish asylum with you, we will not oppose it.”
The Colonel thanked her and as they began to depart she called back and asked the interpreter bid them turn over all Tollan technology taken from the refugees to the planetary customs officers upon their return. “It wouldn’t do us much good, but it has been Tollan law for all of their existence that their technology must never leave their hands. It would be..an insult to their memory to do otherwise.”
Makepeace promised her he would pass that along to his superiors and upon leaving he looked to Lorne as they walked through the marble hallways. “What do you think?”
“Off the record sir?”
“Roger that”
“She’s full of shit sir.”
“Yep”
Something was rotten here.
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I just hope I can keep that up 😅
Travel goes from Pompous ass to....Pinochet Lite? Not sure that's an improvement for her...
Well, Makepeace is just associating her uniform with the imagery...And Makepeace is a jaded bastard. So it may not be the case!
Stupid games, even dumber prizes.
Alright boys, more chapters up...Narim and Carter do their thing...more of the Tolkien riddle is uncovered and every one's favorite congress woman shows up!
……..
Abydos
If she hadn’t seen their skeletal structure up close, or the “zoom” feature in their enhanced eyes that caused their pupils to literally rotate and contract like something out of an old 90’s sci fi flick Carter would have known that the Tollan were genetically and technologically enhanced simply by virtue of the fact that Narim learned English within six hours of waking up and conversing with Kadra who spoke both languages.
It was also an interesting case study in the difference in the medical tech of two highly advanced societies. The Tollan, would listen and you could see little glints in the eyes as if something was firing behind their cornea, they would crane their heads ever so slightly and ask to hear a sentence in the Abydonian dialect of Imperial standard and then in English. And it was very clear there was some kind of mechanical component to the language centers of their brains because their adjustment to Abydonian and Narim’s gradual learning of English followed very logical very orderly parameters. Conversely the Abydonians (And Lotar in general.) who had been engineered but also selectively bred by the System Lords and their ease at understanding complex concepts came via intuition and instinct. They understood, because their survival depended on not only understanding how to perform complex tasks but to anticipate what some overlord wanted. Daniel and Colonel Kowalski seemed to think that was evidence that the System Lords and the other snakes just killed lotar for the hell of it. But Sam agreed with Jack, she thought it was more out of a need to survive. the System Lords spent sixty thousand years in almost constant warfare and then another ten thousand years ending that war and another five thousand consolidating their massive empire. The conditions and pressures on every species within the Imperium not just the lowliest peasants but even those “peers” must have driven everything they did and their own personal and societal and genetic evolution as well. She saw it in Horus’ eyes when they fought as well. There was a measured intensity to them, even though he was enraged and fighting to avenge his father he kept himself collected as if allowing himself a moment of lost control could get him killed.
In the end it nearly did.
There was an, almost PTSD like quality to it and that made the way the Abydonians learned seem at once more “natural” and unnatural. But it was an intense contradiction to the Tollan who seemed to develop themselves in secret and for their own benefit not merely to overcome some insane obstacle. The break down of their cultures was interesting too, the System Lords were hard, brutal aliens but they embraced high culture, had a very proud sense of tradition that Sam felt in every encounter with them or militaries. Even what she read of Herakles seemed to suggest they viewed themselves as custodians and keepers of civilization as they were conquerors and its rightful rulers. They expanded outward, out of a sense of manifest destiny and took worlds as much by culture as they did force of arms and that was exactly why the Tollan seemed to despise them.
Oh, she wagered the Tollan on the trade worlds were different, or they hid it well (Teal’c’s shock at Omoc referring to the Abydonians as “afflicted with the social disease called Lotarism” came to mind.), she wagered they grudgingly maintained those trade planets both out of a need and because they wanted to maintain an intelligence network (She didn’t believe Omoc’s lie about “those dissident’s who engaged in Lotarism.” For a second.), but there was an isolationist bent to them that bordered on irrational. Not that she particularly minded isolationism, Grandpa Jacob was a follower of Pat Buchanan and some of her fondest memories were the time she spent with her grandfather. She understood it, but there seemed to be something almost pathological about how they went about it. As if they were all, dealing with some kind of fresh trauma that made them relive a very old set of traumas. It was weird, it fascinated her almost more than their technology that baffled her.
She watched Narim with curious eyes, he was a good twenty years older than her, but still strong and curious. He’d called her an angel and despite being much the same as the others, he sat down in the grass in the gardens in the city wrestling with a black German Shepherd named Hugo who was part of the security detail assigned to both protect the Tollans and protect others from the Tollan.
The Abydonians loved Hugo and the other black colored dogs, there was an almost religious reverence for them, and they were always overjoyed when the service dogs paid attention to them. Hugo was a grizzled old bastard who was likely going to retire next year, six hard years of combat and two bullet wounds and a blind eye. His handler Captain Matheson planned to give Hugo to the base, to let him spend the rest of his life in comfort as Hugo had essentially taken to the Abydonians like duck to water and everyone on base loved him. Military mascots were supposedly officially discouraged by Landry had already filed the paperwork to make the exception.
“You didn’t have animals like this back home?” Carter asked, kneeling down to join Narim on the floor, grinning in amusement as the dog playfully pinned him then dropped unceremoniously on the grass next to them both. He was an alien, hell he wasn’t even fully organic, he was a cyborg. She shouldn’t enjoy his company as much as she did and by the occasional look she caught out of the corner of his eyes, Carter realized the state of confusion was mutual. -he’s attracted to me too. I should use that to our advantage, but I feel kind of bad doing it-.
“No.” Narim admitted, his English coming out in a sort of posh mid Atlantic for some baffling reason. “When our ancestors arrived on Rax-Tolla the most complex form of life were these walking trees. Later it was determined the walking trees were predators not native to the world and they had decimated the local fauna. So it was only the animals our ancestors brought with them on their arc and much of their genetic material was…” he trailed off, realizing that he had divulging far too much and quickly began scratching Hugo behind his ears, looking ashamed. “I’ve said too much.”
Carter smiled, trying to keep the guilt out of her eyes. “It’s alright Narim, your people have been through hell. It’s natural to want someone to confide in.”
“Perhaps, it’s a curious sensation though. I’ve never had a moment in my life where my sentiments conflict with my duty. I enjoy your company, it stirs my blood and I adore these people and your soldiers. And yet.”
“I know.” Carter muttered, refusing to push any further and she hated herself for it because he was handing her gold that could be used as emotional leverage later, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to.
What the hell was wrong with her?! She wasn’t some dumb teenager; she wasn’t even a dumb teenager when she was a dumb teenager. Then the memory Horus running Daniel Jackson through filled her head, the blade that pierced her heart and ended her pain, the warm dream before she awoke screaming as Leanan Sidhe restored her to existence. They had failed, miserably that day, but they had become a team, a family that day as well. She felt raw, she had seen her brothers die, she had died herself and she was tired of being confused over what she’d experienced in the fall out of that. Nothing had ever been as wonderful or as complicated as serving as a member of the flagship Stargate team and part of her felt like she was failing them now.
“Does that make us disloyal?”
She laughed a hollow laugh, damn the stupid quarter toaster and his ability to synchronize their emotions. She found herself leaning on his shoulder, enjoying the mid-day sunset. This was stupid, she was stupid for this. “No, it doesn’t disloyal would be telling me your secrets to get in my pants, or me seducing you to do the same then helping you escape in a fit of regret or something cliche like that. Neither of us are that stupid.”
“No, we are not.”
So why did they both feel like that was a mark against them?
…………
Cheyenne Mountain
“Representative Kensey, it’s an honor to welcome a member of the-“
“Honor huh Admiral?” The woman barked out a cruel laugh as she took the Admiral’s hand. “Damn George I would have needed a half dozen barbs in gin before I could muster up the gumption to say that to you.” They didn’t shake hands, there was no point in any pretense on that front. Roberta Kensey would have that bald bastard skinned alive on national television if she could get away with it. The sanctimonious idiot had the nerve to rise through the ranks in the clandestine world of cold war politics while still sticking to his principles and together with Ellis and Hayes created a political bloc that had prevented more than a few of her more lucrative ventures.
Not to mention she was certain Hammond had General West killed quietly to avoid his “big treason” coming to light and risking exposure along with it. She could never prove it and she would never forgive it. The few scant pieces of technology brought back (including one of those retractable helmets.) were created a boom in material sciences that so far had been the exclusive purview of small independently owned companies that resisted all attempts at forcing them to become publicly traded and refused sale. All signs pointed to a revolution in said sciences that would ensure the US would stay at the bleeding edge in certain fields for the next century, all great. Except for the fact that her friends in China and Russia were livid at not being able to benefit from that windfall and her own pocketbook wasn’t nearly as bloated as it could be.
So General West tried to sell a Horus guard helmet to a Chinese defense firm, that was no reason to kill a man and threaten to expose a bunch of her assets, especially when she was owed a sixty percent cut of that deal. No, she would never forgive that Texan swamp running frog man. Neither one could prove anything about the other and so this infuriating stalemate continued.
“Though, I’ll admit Texas, its nice seeing our budget being put to good use.” She remarked with derision in her voice causing the Admiral to crane his head slightly before he turned and began to lead her to the conference room. “We do what we can with the budget increase being so recent after almost four decades of neglect.”
“Yes, yes, now onto business Texas. I hear you have some refugees with high technology that are presently homeless.” Kensey queried, a jackal like sneer on her face.
“With all due respect Representative Kensey, what’s your point?”
She smiled, as if he’d stepped into some kind of trap. “Well, you guys have been doing great lately, don’t get me wrong. All the pharma stuff you’re bringing through is like to save tens of millions of lives and the Naquadah generator is a big success from what I hear, but what about weaponry?”
“The staff weapons taken from the-“
“Yes, yes and in ten years maybe we’ll be able to make some energy weapons of our own without any expertise, any knowhow. We need people who know how to make this crap to help and if what the reports are saying about these…What are they called? Toran?”
“Tollan” Hammond answered, his tone growing slightly harsher with every passing second.
“Whatever, your boys seem to think they might have technology on par with or above the damn snakes!”
“We don’t know that.”
She cut him off. “I want their weapons and I want their knowledge Texas.” Her voice was cold and venomous and Hammond got the feeling she was about to try and give him an order he would have to refuse.
“And if they refuse?”
“to hell with them, take it by force and compel 'em under torture if you have too.”
The entire base seemed to go silent at this, even Kensey’s aides who had been putting up a front to try and act tough in solidarity with their boss seemed to come to close to blanching. This was not a conversation to have in a hallway but of course Kensey decided to do it right there, where she could use his answers to undermine his command. “Last I checked, that’s illegal ma’am.”
“you’re right, if these people were Jaffa or any other sort of alien, our legal experts tell me the constitution would apply to them.” She spat the words out as if they were poison on her tongue. “But these people aren’t really even people, are they?”
“Ma’am?” Just what the hell was she getting at?
“The blood work.”
Damn, she had spies in his mountain! No way she’d be reading those reports so fast.
“They’ve got extensive robotics in their body, even those micromachine things..Nanowhatevers. The bill of rights doesn’t apply to inanimate objects Texas, they’re things. They’re not even real, just do what you need to do to take possession of them. They stopped having a say when they woke up on Abydos.”
And there it was, Hammond had expected her to play dirty, something devious, something vile. Maybe the threat of removing him unless he turned them over, maybe a blackmail threat. But this? This was obscene, it violated every oath he ever swore as a warrior, as a soldier and even as a man. Several of the personnel in the area shuffled along quickly, their looks of disgust plain as day. “No.” he answered finally.
She raised an eyebrow “My order comes with a lot of weight Admiral.”
“But it’s outside my chain of command Ma’am and it’s an illegal order.” Cutting her off he added. “I don’t know who the legal scholars you consulted were, but by your criteria of what meets the definition of an artificial person anyone with a pacemaker, cochlear implant or insulin pump would be a cyborg, say don’t you have a pacemaker Representative Kensey?”
Her features seemed to adopt all the characteristics of a particularly ugly newborn that just tasted lemon for the first time. “Last I checked, Texas. I wasn’t an alien.”
“Even if I agreed Ma’am, what would torturing these people get us? If you’re right and they’re more sophisticated than the Goold, do you really think torturing their citizens is going to help us? What if they take it as an act of war? We’re barely managing to avoid a war with the preeminent power in our neck of the woods and now you want to risk possible war with another power?”
“I’ll take this to your superiors Hammond.”
“Read the Space Force charter ma’am, there’s no one superior to me save for the man who sits in the Whitehouse and ol’Admiral Ellis. Hell, let’s step into my office, we can conference together the four of us.”
Kensey paused for a moment, hanging there in the hallway, looking as if she were going to try to rip the man’s head off. Her lips twitched, before she laughed a false laugh. “Alright Texas, you can refuse me, but I’ll go over your head in a different way.” She turned and stormed towards the main command area as if the damn base belonged to her.
This was going to be problem, how the hell was he supposed to explore the Galaxy and make allies if elements of his own government were hellbent on playing stupid games like this!
……..
Abydos
If she hadn’t seen their skeletal structure up close, or the “zoom” feature in their enhanced eyes that caused their pupils to literally rotate and contract like something out of an old 90’s sci fi flick Carter would have known that the Tollan were genetically and technologically enhanced simply by virtue of the fact that Narim learned English within six hours of waking up and conversing with Kadra who spoke both languages.
It was also an interesting case study in the difference in the medical tech of two highly advanced societies. The Tollan, would listen and you could see little glints in the eyes as if something was firing behind their cornea, they would crane their heads ever so slightly and ask to hear a sentence in the Abydonian dialect of Imperial standard and then in English. And it was very clear there was some kind of mechanical component to the language centers of their brains because their adjustment to Abydonian and Narim’s gradual learning of English followed very logical very orderly parameters. Conversely the Abydonians (And Lotar in general.) who had been engineered but also selectively bred by the System Lords and their ease at understanding complex concepts came via intuition and instinct. They understood, because their survival depended on not only understanding how to perform complex tasks but to anticipate what some overlord wanted. Daniel and Colonel Kowalski seemed to think that was evidence that the System Lords and the other snakes just killed lotar for the hell of it. But Sam agreed with Jack, she thought it was more out of a need to survive. the System Lords spent sixty thousand years in almost constant warfare and then another ten thousand years ending that war and another five thousand consolidating their massive empire. The conditions and pressures on every species within the Imperium not just the lowliest peasants but even those “peers” must have driven everything they did and their own personal and societal and genetic evolution as well. She saw it in Horus’ eyes when they fought as well. There was a measured intensity to them, even though he was enraged and fighting to avenge his father he kept himself collected as if allowing himself a moment of lost control could get him killed.
In the end it nearly did.
There was an, almost PTSD like quality to it and that made the way the Abydonians learned seem at once more “natural” and unnatural. But it was an intense contradiction to the Tollan who seemed to develop themselves in secret and for their own benefit not merely to overcome some insane obstacle. The break down of their cultures was interesting too, the System Lords were hard, brutal aliens but they embraced high culture, had a very proud sense of tradition that Sam felt in every encounter with them or militaries. Even what she read of Herakles seemed to suggest they viewed themselves as custodians and keepers of civilization as they were conquerors and its rightful rulers. They expanded outward, out of a sense of manifest destiny and took worlds as much by culture as they did force of arms and that was exactly why the Tollan seemed to despise them.
Oh, she wagered the Tollan on the trade worlds were different, or they hid it well (Teal’c’s shock at Omoc referring to the Abydonians as “afflicted with the social disease called Lotarism” came to mind.), she wagered they grudgingly maintained those trade planets both out of a need and because they wanted to maintain an intelligence network (She didn’t believe Omoc’s lie about “those dissident’s who engaged in Lotarism.” For a second.), but there was an isolationist bent to them that bordered on irrational. Not that she particularly minded isolationism, Grandpa Jacob was a follower of Pat Buchanan and some of her fondest memories were the time she spent with her grandfather. She understood it, but there seemed to be something almost pathological about how they went about it. As if they were all, dealing with some kind of fresh trauma that made them relive a very old set of traumas. It was weird, it fascinated her almost more than their technology that baffled her.
She watched Narim with curious eyes, he was a good twenty years older than her, but still strong and curious. He’d called her an angel and despite being much the same as the others, he sat down in the grass in the gardens in the city wrestling with a black German Shepherd named Hugo who was part of the security detail assigned to both protect the Tollans and protect others from the Tollan.
The Abydonians loved Hugo and the other black colored dogs, there was an almost religious reverence for them, and they were always overjoyed when the service dogs paid attention to them. Hugo was a grizzled old bastard who was likely going to retire next year, six hard years of combat and two bullet wounds and a blind eye. His handler Captain Matheson planned to give Hugo to the base, to let him spend the rest of his life in comfort as Hugo had essentially taken to the Abydonians like duck to water and everyone on base loved him. Military mascots were supposedly officially discouraged by Landry had already filed the paperwork to make the exception.
“You didn’t have animals like this back home?” Carter asked, kneeling down to join Narim on the floor, grinning in amusement as the dog playfully pinned him then dropped unceremoniously on the grass next to them both. He was an alien, hell he wasn’t even fully organic, he was a cyborg. She shouldn’t enjoy his company as much as she did and by the occasional look she caught out of the corner of his eyes, Carter realized the state of confusion was mutual. -he’s attracted to me too. I should use that to our advantage, but I feel kind of bad doing it-.
“No.” Narim admitted, his English coming out in a sort of posh mid Atlantic for some baffling reason. “When our ancestors arrived on Rax-Tolla the most complex form of life were these walking trees. Later it was determined the walking trees were predators not native to the world and they had decimated the local fauna. So it was only the animals our ancestors brought with them on their arc and much of their genetic material was…” he trailed off, realizing that he had divulging far too much and quickly began scratching Hugo behind his ears, looking ashamed. “I’ve said too much.”
Carter smiled, trying to keep the guilt out of her eyes. “It’s alright Narim, your people have been through hell. It’s natural to want someone to confide in.”
“Perhaps, it’s a curious sensation though. I’ve never had a moment in my life where my sentiments conflict with my duty. I enjoy your company, it stirs my blood and I adore these people and your soldiers. And yet.”
“I know.” Carter muttered, refusing to push any further and she hated herself for it because he was handing her gold that could be used as emotional leverage later, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to.
What the hell was wrong with her?! She wasn’t some dumb teenager; she wasn’t even a dumb teenager when she was a dumb teenager. Then the memory Horus running Daniel Jackson through filled her head, the blade that pierced her heart and ended her pain, the warm dream before she awoke screaming as Leanan Sidhe restored her to existence. They had failed, miserably that day, but they had become a team, a family that day as well. She felt raw, she had seen her brothers die, she had died herself and she was tired of being confused over what she’d experienced in the fall out of that. Nothing had ever been as wonderful or as complicated as serving as a member of the flagship Stargate team and part of her felt like she was failing them now.
“Does that make us disloyal?”
She laughed a hollow laugh, damn the stupid quarter toaster and his ability to synchronize their emotions. She found herself leaning on his shoulder, enjoying the mid-day sunset. This was stupid, she was stupid for this. “No, it doesn’t disloyal would be telling me your secrets to get in my pants, or me seducing you to do the same then helping you escape in a fit of regret or something cliche like that. Neither of us are that stupid.”
“No, we are not.”
So why did they both feel like that was a mark against them?
…………
Cheyenne Mountain
“Representative Kensey, it’s an honor to welcome a member of the-“
“Honor huh Admiral?” The woman barked out a cruel laugh as she took the Admiral’s hand. “Damn George I would have needed a half dozen barbs in gin before I could muster up the gumption to say that to you.” They didn’t shake hands, there was no point in any pretense on that front. Roberta Kensey would have that bald bastard skinned alive on national television if she could get away with it. The sanctimonious idiot had the nerve to rise through the ranks in the clandestine world of cold war politics while still sticking to his principles and together with Ellis and Hayes created a political bloc that had prevented more than a few of her more lucrative ventures.
Not to mention she was certain Hammond had General West killed quietly to avoid his “big treason” coming to light and risking exposure along with it. She could never prove it and she would never forgive it. The few scant pieces of technology brought back (including one of those retractable helmets.) were created a boom in material sciences that so far had been the exclusive purview of small independently owned companies that resisted all attempts at forcing them to become publicly traded and refused sale. All signs pointed to a revolution in said sciences that would ensure the US would stay at the bleeding edge in certain fields for the next century, all great. Except for the fact that her friends in China and Russia were livid at not being able to benefit from that windfall and her own pocketbook wasn’t nearly as bloated as it could be.
So General West tried to sell a Horus guard helmet to a Chinese defense firm, that was no reason to kill a man and threaten to expose a bunch of her assets, especially when she was owed a sixty percent cut of that deal. No, she would never forgive that Texan swamp running frog man. Neither one could prove anything about the other and so this infuriating stalemate continued.
“Though, I’ll admit Texas, its nice seeing our budget being put to good use.” She remarked with derision in her voice causing the Admiral to crane his head slightly before he turned and began to lead her to the conference room. “We do what we can with the budget increase being so recent after almost four decades of neglect.”
“Yes, yes, now onto business Texas. I hear you have some refugees with high technology that are presently homeless.” Kensey queried, a jackal like sneer on her face.
“With all due respect Representative Kensey, what’s your point?”
She smiled, as if he’d stepped into some kind of trap. “Well, you guys have been doing great lately, don’t get me wrong. All the pharma stuff you’re bringing through is like to save tens of millions of lives and the Naquadah generator is a big success from what I hear, but what about weaponry?”
“The staff weapons taken from the-“
“Yes, yes and in ten years maybe we’ll be able to make some energy weapons of our own without any expertise, any knowhow. We need people who know how to make this crap to help and if what the reports are saying about these…What are they called? Toran?”
“Tollan” Hammond answered, his tone growing slightly harsher with every passing second.
“Whatever, your boys seem to think they might have technology on par with or above the damn snakes!”
“We don’t know that.”
She cut him off. “I want their weapons and I want their knowledge Texas.” Her voice was cold and venomous and Hammond got the feeling she was about to try and give him an order he would have to refuse.
“And if they refuse?”
“to hell with them, take it by force and compel 'em under torture if you have too.”
The entire base seemed to go silent at this, even Kensey’s aides who had been putting up a front to try and act tough in solidarity with their boss seemed to come to close to blanching. This was not a conversation to have in a hallway but of course Kensey decided to do it right there, where she could use his answers to undermine his command. “Last I checked, that’s illegal ma’am.”
“you’re right, if these people were Jaffa or any other sort of alien, our legal experts tell me the constitution would apply to them.” She spat the words out as if they were poison on her tongue. “But these people aren’t really even people, are they?”
“Ma’am?” Just what the hell was she getting at?
“The blood work.”
Damn, she had spies in his mountain! No way she’d be reading those reports so fast.
“They’ve got extensive robotics in their body, even those micromachine things..Nanowhatevers. The bill of rights doesn’t apply to inanimate objects Texas, they’re things. They’re not even real, just do what you need to do to take possession of them. They stopped having a say when they woke up on Abydos.”
And there it was, Hammond had expected her to play dirty, something devious, something vile. Maybe the threat of removing him unless he turned them over, maybe a blackmail threat. But this? This was obscene, it violated every oath he ever swore as a warrior, as a soldier and even as a man. Several of the personnel in the area shuffled along quickly, their looks of disgust plain as day. “No.” he answered finally.
She raised an eyebrow “My order comes with a lot of weight Admiral.”
“But it’s outside my chain of command Ma’am and it’s an illegal order.” Cutting her off he added. “I don’t know who the legal scholars you consulted were, but by your criteria of what meets the definition of an artificial person anyone with a pacemaker, cochlear implant or insulin pump would be a cyborg, say don’t you have a pacemaker Representative Kensey?”
Her features seemed to adopt all the characteristics of a particularly ugly newborn that just tasted lemon for the first time. “Last I checked, Texas. I wasn’t an alien.”
“Even if I agreed Ma’am, what would torturing these people get us? If you’re right and they’re more sophisticated than the Goold, do you really think torturing their citizens is going to help us? What if they take it as an act of war? We’re barely managing to avoid a war with the preeminent power in our neck of the woods and now you want to risk possible war with another power?”
“I’ll take this to your superiors Hammond.”
“Read the Space Force charter ma’am, there’s no one superior to me save for the man who sits in the Whitehouse and ol’Admiral Ellis. Hell, let’s step into my office, we can conference together the four of us.”
Kensey paused for a moment, hanging there in the hallway, looking as if she were going to try to rip the man’s head off. Her lips twitched, before she laughed a false laugh. “Alright Texas, you can refuse me, but I’ll go over your head in a different way.” She turned and stormed towards the main command area as if the damn base belonged to her.
This was going to be problem, how the hell was he supposed to explore the Galaxy and make allies if elements of his own government were hellbent on playing stupid games like this!
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Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Why hasn't SOCOM arranged a accident for her yet? Seriously car crashes aren't hard to pull off
She bribes the right people, but even with that she's pushing her luck to the limit and beyond.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
She keeps pushing and she's going to have a plane accident or just vanish. For shit like this uncle sam ain't fucking around
paulobrito
Well-known member
Ah, our nice senator has arrived at last. Well portraited.
I loved the work that Ronny Cox has done, creating one vile, corrupt but capable senator that everybody loves to hate.
I loved the work that Ronny Cox has done, creating one vile, corrupt but capable senator that everybody loves to hate.
She's on a tear, and probably to where she might end up with a bridge dropped on her if she isn't careful.
The true villain returns
That payoff is going to be worth savouring
It's funny as crazy as Apophis is, as bad as Ra got I think Kensey and Amunet are the only unrepentantly evil characters in the fic so far.
There's Klorel but he's literally retarded. So I don't think that counts.
Howd I handle Carter and Narim? Something about their interactions in Canon bugged me but I also enjoyed them and tried to do it justice here.
Plus I wanted her to face some of the drawbacks of her attitude regarding non earthers.
Daniel and Omoc are up next! And Travell and Kensey will likely clash soon which I'm sure @Spartan303 is gonna love
Harlock
I should have expected that really
I found the interaction natural and humane. It gave a bit more to Carter and how she is dealing with things, her lines and considerations within her job. These are people with titanic responsibility and its easy to assume their capabilities are equally vast to match, indeed it seems many they meet see them that way.
Seeing they are still human and dealing with what they could do vs what they should do, it is a highlight and something the original usually handled well. Going good here too, nice depth.
Seeing they are still human and dealing with what they could do vs what they should do, it is a highlight and something the original usually handled well. Going good here too, nice depth.
It's not always easy to handle her POV. Because she's a lot younger than she was in the show which I admittedly did as a tongue in cheek gag at the 100th episode thing and because it made a bit more sense to me that the more clandestine and broader SGC would be tapping anyone with skills
She's also got the life I imagine Colonel Carter having. Had she been a civilian instead of an airforce officer. She's had a lot of the same experience as a pilot and her academic career is in the same vein. She was a test pilot for the new Space vehicles instead of a golf war pilot.
But she's also a kid who was raised by her grandpa because her parents were killed when their plane hit the Pentagon and I'll go into detail on that because she was there with General Carter when it happened.
She's also the descendant of a certain confederate war hero turned adventurer but she won't know the extent of that legacy until she meets Bra'tac
Which has certainly shaped how she approaches the Galaxy and there's a bit of that mad scientist in her and some baggage and unlike Canon Sam who had her military discipline to curb her instincts and help her deal with her mom's death.
And admittedly writing her and Daniel has been harder than I thought it would be.
No regrets though. I just hope I don't foul it up.
That's a relief, every time I try to write anything introspective for them I worry I'm napalming the quality of my fic 🤣
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