Stargate Through the Looking Glass and into Heaven.

New Update Leanan creeps out O'Neill, Nefreyu tells his mom to chill and we get a bit of the backstory of the Nox and its about as horrifying as you'd expect.

Jack trying real hard not to use the Next Generation weapons @bullethead described so brilliantly right about now.



Avalon:

“So, you guys invented Gaelic?” O’Neill asked the woman as they walked across a bridge that seemed to grow out of ground, springing up from the lake clear as crystal and nearly completely transparent. The architecture of it was simple, pilings, flooring and a guard rail. It wasn’t until Jack saw the end of the bridge which he realized was being held up by two massive gargoyle like monstrosities that seemed to stand vigil leering out at prospective newcomers as they supported the weight of the bridge.

“No, no.” Leanan waved off Jack’s assumption. “We don’t really speak a language amongst ourselves, at least not anymore. We developed the spoken word to communicate with the First Asgard and Fyryns. The forefathers of what you know as the Ori and Alterans as well, I suppose though they communicated with us through mathematics I believe. That was a long time ago, way before I was born any way. Which is saying something since I’m about a half million of your years old.”

“Damn” Jack muttered. “You don’t look it.”

“Oh, you’re sweet. Thank you!”

Damn, the tone of her voice was unsettling.

“I suppose your son’s as old as Ra was or something?” O’Neill asked somewhat amused. The woman smirked at him almost impishly “Hah! No, he’s about twenty Earth years old. He’s why my grandfather thought it best to move Avalon here, my people had a bunch of kids, and it was the first time since I was born so he thought it would be a good idea for us to guide the new generation and for them to gain experience in a new environment.” Though, where Avalon was originally was a subject, she wouldn’t speak on. The ease with which she spoke his language continued to bother him and he broached the topic, asking her how they learned Gaelic then.

“Well, originally I spoke caveman, my aunt Medb helped them raise the stones you guys associated with druids. But she departed earth when Ra came, she thought he would rob your people of their ambition and their imagination. She wasn’t entirely correct, I found that out when my mother and father visited Earth some five thousand years ago and then told me to come.” She shrugged, as if the idea of her just vacationing on earth was the most mundane thing in the world when it was upsetting everything, he knew about pre–Roman Britain, Scotland and Ireland or hell France and Spain for that matter.

“You guys make a habit of visiting us?” Jack asked, a slight edge to his voice. The creature, this princess of the Nox laughed and slid her left arm through O’Neill’s. “No, not all of us, but I do. I love your world, the dreams of human children be they Lotar or Tau’Ri fascinate my aunt and I, our grandfather as well. We tend to kindle imagination where we can find it in sentients, sometimes we..elevate one of the lower beings by making them one of us. But they’re almost always children.”

So, the stories about Fair Folk being child stealers wasn’t wrong, that was lovely. It was oddly phrased though, in a way that suggested she removed them from situations where their potential and maybe even their lives would have been wasted or come to a bad end. Still, whether it was rescuing kids from bad homes by abduction or not, it wasn’t exactly ethical. -robbing them of their human nature too, kinda defeats the purpose- he wondered. “...You...really do steal children? I should protest that with bullets”

She laughed, unconcerned with his threats, uncaring for the horrors of the implication. “Don’t worry Colonel, in the long history of visiting your world its only happen maybe a dozen times and only when the child has potential and only when they're in danger. I assure you; we don’t run around the moors at night pillaging the cottages of poor sheep herders who’ve no offering to leave at their doorsteps.” She tugged on his arm playfully and Jack realized they’d reached solid ground in time for the bridge and the gargoyles to vanish.

“So that’s how you learned Gaelic and then modern English? You visit our children when they sleep?” Jackson asked, a mix of alarm and wonder. This was disturbing, but the didn't think she was lying about how rare it was and the criteria for when they did it. Still, these were not people they needed to have a lot of involvement with, her casual admission was horrifying and seemed to make them just as much of a threat as the System Lords..Yet... They were too powerful to ignore and they had something the SGC wanted. -This is so dangerous-

She shrugged. “For the same reason we did it to the Ancients and to the Peers and why we lit the fires of wanderlust in the Asgard when they looked up the stars with crude instruments and asked what was out there and if there were things out there. Could they not benefit from the fires of civilization?” she paused detecting the discomfort in O’Neill and Jackson and the understanding in Carter’s eyes that seemed to galvanize something within her. “Colonel, the Ra you killed was a shade of the being I knew and loved as a friend. If you knew him was, he was long ago, you’d have seen the comparison for the compliment he was. You probably would have even liked him.”

“Can’t imagine that.” O’Neill murmured.

She smiled somewhat sadly. “Trust me Colonel, you didn’t kill him. You put him out of his misery.”

“Well, either way. We came here to ask if you’d be interested in the possibility of trade and or of an alliance.” Carter put in, trying to shift the conversation away from a topic that neither man wanted to really entertain at the moment.

The lady of Avalon smiled at Carter, but the look in the alien woman’s eyes caused Sam to reflexively take a step back. “Oh, you would bargain with us?” she responded in that same lyrical voice, but there was something utterly inhuman about it that made the young woman’s blood run cold. “You aren’t at a level where you could be of any value to us in terms of a political or military alliance. As to the other thing, we’ve already established something of a trade relationship, haven’t we?”

Dreams, Children.

O’Neill suddenly felt like he’d led his men into a trap, and he pulled himself from Leanan and stepped back, only to end up flipping her the bird when the “woman” erupted in laughter. “I’m kidding!! Look if you guys want to rummage through our forests for medicinal herbs or explore our mountains and caves of Naquadah veins, none of us would object to it. We would only ask that you don’t turn our valleys into something like las medulas when the Romans ran it or what have you. There’s also a great platinum deposit I can have my son show you, again I would only ask that you not wreck our backyard.” She paused, stopping herself in mid conversation her mind wandering. “Well, I suppose that wouldn’t be a trade agreement perse, more an agreement. We would ask for something in return, but I won’t tell you what it is yet, not for awhile at least. And I'll suppose you'll want us to stop picking up lost boys, I'll agree to a fifty year cessation at least!” She nodded as if satisfied then craned her head. “Are you expecting company Colonel?”

“No, we were supposed to check in once every seventy-two hours, but I doubt it’s been that long.” O’Neill answered, still looking at her as though she were a nest of vipers and not an alien monarch. she was easy to like, easy to believe and that made her damn dangerous.

When the woman canted her head to the other side and then received a glare from Nefreyu who mouthed something unintelligible, but Jack guessed it was the fairy speak equivalent of “I told you so.”

“It’s been more than seventy-two hours, hasn’t it?” O’Neill asked.

“It has been, my apologies. But it seems your drone was joined by another, though the gate address was for Abydos not Tau’Ri.”.

Oh crap.

We segue to Florida as Ellis and Statterfield yank Hammond's aid Petty Officer O'Neill off to visit a certain someone.



Florida Coast:

“Why are we in Florida to find a Canadian again Director?” Petty Officer Sandra O’Neill grumbled as a row of palm trees obscuring a vast beach and golden sands on one side and rows of McMansions on the other side. Nestled between Juno Beach and another upscale retirement area, the only sane member of the O’Neill family couldn’t even be sure this town had a name.

But there was one thing she was sure of. The seemingly gauche town was filled with former spooks, retired mobsters and engineers and “consultants” for the defense industry. One had to look at the sort of cars that were parked in every yard, behind the same iron gates. Or the same kind of vapid playboys that were out on the beaches, young adults and teenagers who were born into the kind of unearned wealth only people affiliated with the bureaucracy of the American Intelligence apparatus or its byzantine civilian counterpart could attain.

“Because this is where he was put when he went off the rails Sandy.” The tone was lyrical and there was a touch of a bayou born swamp runner’s accent that years spent commanding a carrier group or walking through the halls of the Pentagon or the Capitol building never could quite erase. Abraham Ellis had retired officially from the Space Force and assumed his (rightful in the eyes of many) place as the director of Project Constellation and was the first director of the newly created home world Security. Positions that Ellis was hesitant to accept, believing he was too old (His eldest son Abe Ellis the second was a Captain on a carrier and Abe’s son Abraham the third was a newly minted Petty Officer in Space Force for gods sakes) to fill. The President had other ideas though and after a lengthy conversation the wheeler and dealer in chief managed to convince Abe to serve his country for another five years, helping them in this time of crisis to build up the infrastructure that would hopefully make Earth a power one day a century or more from now.

And so here he was, with Admiral Hammond and Jack O’Neill on one last adventure. Or in this case, with Sandra O’Neill Hammond’s “Aide de mountain” and a small security detail looking for a guy in an upscale Florida lunatic asylum.

O’Neill’s whistle broke him out of his introspection, however. “He must have been a huge deal if you put him in a place like this.”

“Your sister would hit you for not knowing who this guy is.” A second voice from the back remarked. Kim Statterfield had come along for this jaunt, she hadn’t seen Meredith in almost fifteen years and while almost everyone struggled to put up with his eccentricity back in the day, she’d taken a liking to him off the bat. “And your father would shoot me for this.”

“Oh, he got on Dad’s nerves?”

Kim and Ellis both shared a look that suggested her father probably still dreamt about shoving this guy in a stump grinder. “Any way, he did a lot of the calculations for Constellation. His work was, you might say integral to certain key areas of the project. Plus Carter based a lot of her research on his work” Namely, without his theories on hyperspace, the Arizona would just be a really expensive battleship looking model.

“So, you put him up in a nice crazy house when he snapped…Why did he snap and are you sure he’s still useful to us sir?” Sandra asked.

The old Admiral laughed “Girl, you’ve gotten quite mouthy since I stepped out of uniform.”

Sandra smiled warmly at the old man. “Only because I respect you so much sir.”

Like father, like daughter Abe thought. “He’s the smartest human being in his field, with the exception of Doctor Carter and maybe your sister.”

Sandra beamed with pride.

They pulled up to the august facility that loomed over a brackwish water lake that was fed by a creek and by an artificial bay. The smell of mangroves, seabirds and schizophrenia filled Sandra’s nostrils as the group made their way towards the entrance of the facility that reminded her of the architecture she saw in Southern Spain. “This place looks like a pink copy of the Alhambra.”

“I think it is.” Kim said, regretting her choice in wearing black in the Florida sun. “Any idea what to expect in here Abe? It’s been a while; do we even know where his head is at?”

“Can’t be worse than before.” Ellis remarked.

They were led down a series of hallways by an overly friendly receptionist and eventually out of a door near the park. Down a path that was far too pleasant and flowery to have a positive impact on anyone’s mental health and to a large cottage where the object of their quest evidently was confined. “He’ll be glad to see you, he hasn’t had any visitors in five years.” Their guidet said in that pleasant, patronizing tone Sandra came to hate from head shrinks those who worked for and with them. A door opened and an exasperated guard built like freight train who was a green beret in another life told their guide that “The Good Doctor was on one of his math spazzes again.”

Sandra wasn’t sure what she was prepared for but when the shout of “YO, RODNEY WE GOT GUESTS” came out and a dude wearing a silk bathrobe, whose face and hands were covered in calculations (Did he run out of space on the walls and floors and with paper? Why didn’t he use a computer or a tablet or a laptop like any normal crazy person?) and a mess of Einstein like hair that rose almost like a fan that accentuated his impressive widows peak and rather formidable forehead. He gazed at everyone present, as if he was looking through them until he seemed to recognize something in the spot on the wall he was gazing at. “Admiral Ellis! Statterfield?! Why are you here…wait..why are you out of uniform? Did you retire? Of course you retired, you’re what? Eighty?”

“Seventy five Rodney.”

“I knew that! I was just checking to see if you had dementia, how’s Misses Ellis?”

“She’s fine Rodney, she sends you, her regards.” Ellis said in a patient, grandfatherly voice that sounded almost strained. “How are you doing?”

“Whose this!” He yelled rounding on Sandra, looking the raven haired girl up and down. “Hmm, facial structure reminds me of Jack and Sara..But your hair color is all wrong. I take it you’re not a caveman like your dad?!”

“umm..How’d you..wait…HEY! My father isn’t a cave man..” He was twitching, running his fingers along the lapel of his robe and mumbling to himself, pacing in a circle.

“Yes, he is! But he’s a damn smart one, yup definitely an O’Neill.” He turned to Ellis and Statterifled now, seeming to grow more agitated, agitated enough the Guard gestured for an orderly that was sitting in the TV room. Only to wave him off when Rodney calmed down and gazed at Ellis with a look of awe and excitement. “I was right…That’s why you’re here.”

Ellis smiled, he might have gone crazier, but he was still as perceptive as ever and as fast as ever. “Sorry I lied to you Rodney..”

He nodded. “You should be sorry, you’d be having this conversation with me from Alpha Centauri if you clued me in and I wouldn’t be here. Why are you here? Wait shut up…I need to know if this is a hallucination…How do I know you aren’t a delusion.”

“They’re not a hallucination Rodney” The human freight train said in an exhausted tone.

“That’s just what a hallucination would say!”

“Meredith..” Ellis piped in.

“HEY!” the lunatic paused, blinked then seemed to sag with relief. “Oh good…you’re not a hallucination, my hallucinations never call me that.”

“Good Rod..wait..what?” Kim blurted out.

“Nothing, nothing..now, you’re twenty years behind where you should be, well actually you should be fifty years behind, but I heard you tapped Carter, she’s good, for a place holder but.”

“Rodney.” Ellis said with a bit more firmness in his tone mixed with relief that Mccay wasn’t completely blitzed and crazy.

“Not now Admiral..we have to get to work!”

Ellis let out a deep chuckle. You don’t know the half of it my boy, you don’t know the half of it.