Currentpresent 7
Stargate Command,
Cheyenne Mountain
September 1997
It hadn’t even been five minutes since George Hammond sat down behind his desk for his first interruption of the day.
Diplomatic Corps golden boy Joseph Faxon walked in with a decent amount of humility, but he was annoyingly upbeat for the hour. Compared to other diplomatic personnel he’d encountered at other postings, Faxon was actually inoffensive, but Hammond had enough to deal with on his plate. For example, two alien dignitaries on his base.
“Good morning General,” Faxon said as he closed the door. “I was wondering if you have an itinerary planned out for today. I’m hoping to take advantage of the Tollan lending us one of their intelligence officers to wrap up the preliminaries and get us a formal diplomatic visit to their homeworld.”
Taking a sip from his coffee, Hammond considered the diplomat and his words. Faxon had at least listened and supported his idea to offer the Tollan the opportunity to send an envoy to participate in the interrogation of the rogue Tok’ra now in their possession. It was the general’s hope that the olive branch would not only show that the people of Earth were proactively seeking an alliance, but it’d get out ahead of the issues with the NID that pastfuture Teal’c had warned him about.
“Mr. Faxon, I would love to give you that kind of information, but to be frank, I have no idea how long it’ll take to debrief this ‘Sina’ character. I’m neck deep in questions from the president, the Pentagon, and the CIA, and that’s
before we even get into anything the Tollan might want to know.” The bald general shook his head. “I can’t make any guarantees, besides that I’ll let you know when we’re done for the day. If the envoy wants to work with you then, that’s her choice.”
To his credit, the diplomat just nodded. “Fair point,” he conceded. “I imagine there’ll be plenty of time to work things out afterwards. Anyway, thank you for your time, general.”
Before Faxon could step out, Hammond added, “By the way, I would appreciate it if you’d let me know ahead of time if you’re thinking of having SG-1 escort you to the Tollan homeworld. It’d save me some time reworking the mission schedules now that we’ve got enough information to make sensible decisions.”
Faxon chuckled at that. “Don’t worry general, you’ll be the
first to get that memo.”
An hour later, after receiving word that all of SG-1 had arrived, he ordered them to the briefing room, where he introduced them to the Tollan envoy, who’d arrived on Earth before SG-1 and SG-3 returned with Sina. That had been an intentional move to keep the rogue Tok’ra in the dark and hopefully off balance, in the hopes of getting even more information out of her.
Dr. Janet Fraiser was also present, since her medical knowledge might be useful when it came to xenomorph-hybrid related matters. Once everyone was seated, Hammond ordered Sina brought to the briefing room. He locked his eyes to the door and waited to see her reaction.
When Sina, who wore a generic jumpsuit provided by the SGC, stepped into the room, he could see the recognition and nostalgia on her face. Then Sina saw the Tollan officer, a lightly tanned woman with reddish-brown hair, a black uniform jacket, and gray pants. Sina’s face was a tapestry of mixed emotions, starting with shock and surprise, moving to confusion, and finally settling on resignation and acceptance.
“You should be familiar with most of us,” Hammond said as he gestured towards an empty seat. “Capitaneus Septima is here to represent the Tollan government.”
“I see,” the Tok’ra said slowly as she sat down, ignoring the guards that escorted her taking position by the door. “Where would you like to begin?”
“How about we start at the beginning? Namely, why did you decide that traveling back in time with half-xenomorph hybrids was in any way a good idea?” The general had tried to keep his tone friendly and reasonable, but he couldn’t stop the sarcasm from leaking out.
Sighing, Sina seemed like she’d been expecting this question for a long time. Perhaps even the entire time since her trip through time. “It all comes back to one thing, the one thing the xeno-brids will not stop talking about: biology. Only Goa’uld queens can spawn children, and ours was the only one that rejected the philosophy of dominance in favor of symbiosis. Without her, we could never grow as a population.”
The Tollan officer spoke for the first time, her voice sharp like steel. “Did you attempt
any other solutions?”
“Of course we did,” Sina replied, rolling her eyes. “
With the cooperation of the Tau’ri. The most promising results we had were from retroviral gene modification of nonsapient Goa’uld symbiotes.” She paused and added, “Goa’uld are born with genetic memory. The nonsapient ones lack this memory, and so we could successfully edit their genes to include Tok’ra memories. Unfortunately, we couldn’t use this process to create new Queens, and there was only a limited supply of nonsapient Goa’uld.”
“And what exactly happened to the test-subjects?” Dr. Fraiser asked, her harsh tone hinting at what she suspected.
“They did not survive, unfortunately.” Sina seemed sad and tired, but Hammond wasn’t sure if that was genuine or an act. But if it was true, he could begin to see what’d gotten them to this point. “That was why we devised our time travel plan. SG-1 discovered that Egeria hadn’t been killed, as we’d assumed, but imprisoned on Pangar. But the Pangarans had discovered her first and experimented on her in ignorance, so she died before she could spawn a new generation of Tok’ra. The only way to save her was to
prevent that chain of events.”
“And the xenomorph-hybrids? How did they fit into this?” Hammond asked.
“They were merely the only people at the only time,” was the Tok’ra’s weary reply. “There were only a half dozen of us, and that was
before we lost two of our cell extracting the hybrids from the planet we found them on. We needed manpower, and the fact that they had useful scientific knowledge and equipment was, at the time, a benefit.” Sina let out a dry, mirthless chuckle. “If I’d known the problems I was making for everyone, I likely would’ve arranged to beam them out into space and kept their equipment.”
Glancing around the table, he found that most people were in agreement with that sentiment.
“So, what have you and the xenomorph-hybrids been up to on Pangar?”
“This would be easier to explain with visual aids,” Sina commented, looking around the room. “I know you confiscated the memory crystals, along with the rest of my belongings. Do you have a holographic projector?”
Hammond called Walter up and gave him the order to retrieve the items, which were brought in a few minutes later by stern Air Force personnel. The general nodded at Sina, who proceeded to pull a crystal from a coarse cloth bag and connect it to the projector. The image of an island appeared, which looked vaguely like a badly drawn bulldog’s head on its side. Two mountain chains arced from the “ears” in the east to the west, where they merged with a dense mountain arc that made up the “mouth”. The mountains more or less divided the island into four regions, with the highest peaks being in the “mouth” arc.
There were also three lakes, one in the northern, central, and southern regions. The northern lake seemed to be the largest and isolated from the rest of the island by dense forests. The central lake was not that far off from one of major rivers arcing across the island, while the southern one was probably the most scenic and likely to be settled, given how it was nestled among the mountains and valleys. The climate seemed temperate, with vegetation covering most of the island, especially in the form of forests.
“This island was disputed territory amongst the three major factions on Pangar,” Sina explained. “They were persuaded to hand this island over to the Tok’ra and xeno-brids through the usual methods of political and economic persuasion.” She tapped a control and a shading overlay appeared. The west coast of the island, everything on the outer edge of the mountains, was blue, while the large plain on the mountain interior and facing the east coast was green. “The blue represents Tok’ra territory, the green xeno-brid territory.”
“Looks like you got the better end of the deal,” Colonel O’Neill noted. Hammond quietly agreed – if it weren’t for the dense arc of mountains facing outwards towards the west coast, he would’ve pegged the habitable part of the Tok’ra area to be two or three times the size of the xeno-brid area.
“It is my understanding that the island – Cauley Islet – is around the same size as your island nation of Sri Lanka.” Sina zoomed in the image, so that cities and towns were visible. “Most of the original settlements were evacuated in phases prior to the island transferring possession, with rural inhabitants in isolated settlements preferring to stay. Since the initial Tok’ra and xeno-brid populations were small, the human populations were in defacto control of the island for the first decade.”
“What happened after that?” Hammond prompted.
“The first decade was when all the xeno-brid children matured to adulthood.” The hologram switched to a montage of children at different age ranges. The boys looked outwardly normal, if somewhat tall and lean, while the girls all had various parts of their bodies covered in mesoskeleton and tails. “What I did not know when we first encountered the xeno-brids is that they mature in two-thirds the time it takes for a human child to mature.
And they take two-thirds the time to gestate.”
Dr. Fraiser looked up sharply at that, and Hammond wasn’t alone in giving her a questioning look. “General, that means it takes
six months for one hybrid baby to be born, and
twelve years for them to hit adulthood.” As most of the humans rocked back in their seats, she turned to Sina and asked, “How long do they live, and how long are the females capable of reproducing?”
“Up to one hundred years of life, barring injury. The female reproductive system is not fully functional until they hit age 12, but it functions until age 78.”
Captain Carter and Capitaneus Septima both tossed grave expressions at Sina, having clearly run the numbers in their heads before the rest of the humans. “Each of the females can have
152 children in their lifespan?” the Tollan asked.
Even the stoic Teal’c looked concerned by that number, and Hammond found that he could not imagine having so many children. His mind just refused to contemplate that, but it
could come up with pretty plausible reactions from the president, Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Those mountains would do a good job of blocking nuclear fallout.
Then Sina added, “That is just the normal ones. The queens deliver quadruplets every six months, but only after they undergo the transformation process, which they perform around age 30.”
Colonel O’Neill had been taking a sip of his coffee when she said that, and he visibly bent over in pain as he stopped himself from spitting it all over the table. He managed to get a raspy question out as he coughed. “They have eight kids a
year?”
“Yes, they do.” Sina was staring off into the middle distance, and Hammond had to wonder what exactly had happened to her over all those years to cause her to behave that way. Then she seemed to snap out of it, and added, “Luckily, it is not for their entire lifespan.”
“How have they
not overpopulated that island?” Captain Carter inquired, not bothering to keep the shock out of her voice. She probably had a
much better appreciation for the numbers than the general did, and he was quite happy to keep it that way. The ones he heard were bad enough.
“A small initial population, and clever civil engineering.” Sina changed the image to something that Hammond initially mistook for a mountain. But as the image zoomed in, he realized that it was some kind of A frame structure with various shapes jutting out of the exterior. He couldn’t be certain what they were, because a majority of them were covered in weird, biomechanical features that made things bleed together, but he could see windows and even small gardens all over the structure. “I am told that this design was invented in 1967 by a human from Montreal, who was looking to solve urban sprawl by creating dense cities that would provide people the opportunity to own homes.”
“I’m not seeing it,” O’Neill commented, and Hammond had to agree. There was just too much xenomorph styling to
ever see this as a human creation.
Sina tapped a few commands into the projector, and an image of the same style of structure appeared, but this one was clearly made out of concrete. It had terraces of square and rectangular modules that jutted out of the outside of the A frame, and now that he had a better idea of what he was looking at, he had to admit it was an extremely futuristic looking design. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to live there, but he wouldn’t necessarily say no either.
“I’ve seen something like this before,” Dr. Daniel Jackson interjected. “I went on a trip up to Montreal one summer and saw a neighborhood built in that style called Habitat 67.”
“That was indeed designed by the same designer,” Sina said with a nod. “It was a cost and scale reduced version of the original concept.”
“That’s all well and good,” Hammond interrupted, trying to get the interrogation back on track. “You’ve shown how they could house their population, but not how they didn’t overrun the island.”
“Because, for most of the past century, they have used their mandatory conscription scheme to push back when couples started breeding,” the Tok’ra explained. “Four years of mandatory service, all done while the females are under the effects of a long-term contraceptive. Also, up until the past decade, they have not created any test tube babies, as you would call them, after an initial batch to help bolster their population in the early 1900s.”
“General, I think we’re going to all keel over from all the population stuff,” O’Neill remarked after a brief pause, his tone remarkably grim. “Might I recommend we move on to something less terrifying?”
“That might be a good idea,” Hammond acknowledged, checking the list of questions he’d been given. “Alright, in broad terms, what have your Tok’ra cell and the xenomorph-hybrids been doing on Pangar since you arrived – in terms of military, intelligence, and industrial operations?”
“Ah, well, naturally, we’ve been cooperating on the development of infrastructure to help support the coming war effort.” Sina’s tone and attitude seemed a bit more upbeat when addressing this topic. “Mostly the factories for a variety of weapons and equipment for use by the Sodan and other rebel Jaffa. The xeno-brids are also stockpiling a large amount of the output for use in their inevitable extra-galactic colonization effort.” She gave them a sly smile. “As for intelligence operations… we have sporadic contact with the original Tok’ra, for reasons of operational security. They have a Goa’uld mole who cannot be dealt with until you make contact with them. However, we have been coordinating an operation that would of great interest to you.”
“How, exactly?”
Sina glanced over at O’Neill and Jackson, and that gave the general a clue as to what it could be. “We plan to disrupt Apophis’ upcoming attack on Earth by making him think his son Klorel has betrayed him. With the participation of the Tollan,” she nodded towards Septima, “we can expand this operation into a longer term operation to weaken the Goa’uld, while baiting a trap for Sokar. And when appropriate, we can simply remove Klorel from his host, because to the galaxy at large, he would be dead.”
Hammond held up a hand as O’Neill and Jackson started speaking over one another. “Setting aside any personal connections, what
possible reasons would we have to participate in whatever scheme you’ve cooked up?”
The Tok’ra locked eyes with the general, and with a smug expression on her face, pulled out another data crystal. “I have a complete database of technologies and scientific data from a race called the Aschen. A race
SG-1 destroyed in the original timeline for their attempt to deploy a bioweapon against Earth. I am offering it to you
and the Tollan as a sign of friendship from Queen Egeria herself.”
Hammond didn’t even look at the crystal as she placed it on the table and pushed it towards him. “How about you tell us what your plan is, and we can work out the diplomatic implications afterwards?”
Mepotaten, Nemtemar
Milky Way Galaxy
Mepotaten, the capital of Heru’ur’s domain, was a bizarre mixture of white marble and sun bleached mud bricks. The center of city was a massive complex of marble buildings that jutted out of the foot of a massive mountain, where the Goa’uld underlings lived, worked, and entertained themselves. Surrounding that was where the Jaffa and humans lived, with the Jaffa having the higher quality homes.
Heru’ur’s palace and temple, to the outside observer, was a five story, T shaped construct that stretched out from the mountain towards the center of the city. But this was merely the surface level, where Heru’ur handled his leisure and worship. Deeper underground was an even more massive complex that handled the business of controlling his massive interstellar empire and military.
In the command center at the heart of the underground bunker, Heru’ur contemplated the vo’cume projecting an image of the edge of Goa’uld territory facing Sokar’s domain. His father and the various Goa’uld let in on the secret of Sokar’s return had already seeded their borders and the nearby systems with hundreds of satellites to detect the approach of Sokar’s vessels through hyperspace. So far, Sokar’s forces had crept cautiously towards that line in the year since Ra’s death, but Heru’ur was too smart to think that would hold.
No, Sokar was fortifying a beachhead for his
real thrust, deep into the territory of the System Lords.
He heard one of his underlings approach from behind him and tensed. If it was an Ashrak, he was ready to counter an attempt on his life.
“My lord, I have new information regarding the Apophis’ strike on the Tau’ri,” Qa’arr, Heru’ur’s spy master, reported.
Turning, he was greeted by the usual sight of Qa’arr’s host, a distinguished specimen of
fellahin stock from a world in Heru’ur’s domain. His well-groomed hair and beard made his simple robes and silver jewelry seem far more impressive than many more ostentatious underlings. “Speak.”
“Apophis will undertake the mission with nothing but two Ha’tak, but one of them will be under your cousin Klorel’s command.”
Apophis aims only
to destroy the Tau’ri. Heru’ur’s thoughts about the Tau’ri were complicated. On the one hand, despite the fact that the Goa’uld did not have any real amount of filial love, he hated them for killing his father
and weakening the System Lords as they prepared to face Sokar. On the other hand, the confusion over what had happened pushed Ptah to reveal Sokar’s return, so
all the System Lords were preparing. And there was the fact that nuclear incineration was
infinitely more merciful than whatever Sokar would do had he been responsible…
“And the significance of that is?”
Qa’arr smiled. “Apophis has provided Klorel with much material and personnel… including several sources of ours. And they report that Klorel’s support for his father is much more tenuous than we suspected.”
Heru’ur stroked his host’s beard. “Explain.”
“These sources have indicated that Klorel is planning on striking targets inside his father’s domain during or shortly after the attack on Earth. It is unclear if he is intending to kill your uncle and take his claim to your father’s throne, or simply take over Apophis’ domain.” Qa’arr frowned now, not a good sign in Heru’ur’s experience. “There are also unusual movements of some of his underlings, but I have not yet gathered enough information to discern any pattern or cause.”
“Interesting.” If it weren’t for the imminent threat of Sokar attacking a weakened border, Heru’ur would have been tempted to send a small fleet to contest an attempt to take over the First World. Any planet that could produce nuclear weapons had
some level of industry, and that could be useful against Sokar. On the other hand, if Apophis hadn’t been focused on showing how powerful he was by raiding worlds in Heru’ur’s backyard, the Tau’ri could’ve been tricked into focusing their efforts on Sokar. It would take very little to disguise some humans as Jaffa, put Sokar’s emblems on them, and send them through the gate…
No, Apophis would never stand for such subterfuge, Heru’ur thought.
He and I are warriors first. Baal, perhaps, would think of and execute such a scheme, but not us.
Perhaps Klorel was closer to Baal than Apophis in temperament, and that explained the rift growing between them. In which case, perhaps it was to Heru’ur’s benefit to let things play out. After all, Apophis believed that crushing the killers of Ra would solidify his claim to the title of Supreme System Lord…
“Continue gathering intelligence on Klorel’s actions. We may benefit from his actions in the future. But should he decide to contend for the throne…”
Qa’arr bowed and left, fully aware of the unstated order.
Heru’ur returned to his contemplation of the map.
Perhaps something will come of this. Perhaps not. But I cannot afford to lose sight of the real
threat.
Sokar’s forces outnumbered the total forces of the System Lords by an appreciable margin. Even with the secret preparations over the centuries, there were six of Sokar’s ships to every one of theirs. Obviously, a large number of those would be smaller craft like Al’kesh, but the numerical situation was such that attrition would inevitably favor Sokar. He had reserves to spare, and was psychotic enough to not necessarily
care about losses for a long while.
Of course, the Tok’ra and Tau’ri were wildcards in the situation. Heru’ur
knew the Tok’ra knew that Sokar was a threat, but the Tau’ri… Their bumbling might be as big a hindrance as an opportunity. If they could focus on Sokar and disrupt his operations, it would buy breathing room for the System Lords.
Of course, there was always the chance that Sokar was insane enough to challenge the Asgard by attacking one of the protected planets. As much as Heru’ur lusted after the industrial power house of Delmak, Sokar’s throne world, having it be reduced to a radioactive cinder was something he could tolerate, since it denied his rivals that same resource. But he doubted Sokar was
that stupid.
No, he had to prepare for a long, bloody war. A war he had to win at
any cost.
National Institute of Defense (NID) Headquarters,
Ballston, Arlington County, Virginia
Across the Potomac River from Washington D.C. was Arlington County, Virginia. And the “neighborhood” of Ballston was where dozens of scientific research institutes and R&D agencies resided, close to the heart of the American political scene. One of those agencies was the National Institute of Defense.
The NID’s birth had been back when the Advanced Research Projects Agency had been in charge of Project AGILE, the efforts to develop counterinsurgency programs during the Vietnam War. The head of ARPA at the time had little love for the head of AGILE, since ARPA was largely run by scientists, while AGILE’s head was deeply enmeshed in the intelligence world. Through some political machinations, a deal was struck – AGILE would continue as part of a new agency, and ARPA would be spared the need to be involved in coming up with actual tactical uses of science and technology.
That was the birth of the NID. On the surface, it was an agency all about wargaming various conflict scenarios, examining how strategy and technology could intermingle and effect each other. Below the surface, it was involved in counterinsurgency, counterintelligence, and a whole host of classified research, development, and implementation. It was a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that was only a few decades into its life, but in Washington D.C., where nothing was ever allowed to die, that was the norm.
Colonel Harry Maybourne was a United States Air Force officer who had learned early in life that being indispensable was more important than being good, and that being able to sell an idea mattered more than the quality of the idea. Back during the Cold War, he’d gotten in good with the intelligence community and high-ranking officers who valued morality and integrity far less than results. His reward was a position of authority at the NID, which allowed him access to untold secrets, including dirty ones that could kill careers.
In his office, which he personally swept for bugs no less than two times per day (when he first arrived and after his lunch break, at minimum), he found himself in a meeting with Colonel Frank Simmons, a like-minded officer who Maybourne had personally recruited into the NID.
“I don’t like how things are going with the Stargate program, Frank,” Maybourne bluntly announced. “Ever since they retrieved all that future material, we’ve been steadily marginalized.”
The NID had been
especially interested in the Stargate program for a wide variety of reasons, not limited to but including the opportunity to project American power to other planets. Getting cut out of that was… not ideal.
“There’s not much we can do if it’s coming from the top,” Simmons pointed out, taking a sip of coffee. “Making a fuss might make things worse for us.”
“Good point,” Maybourne conceded. “But I’m hearing rumblings that NATO might be getting in on the action via a second gate. Which we weren’t told about.”
Simmons grunted, scowling in annoyance as he took another sip of coffee. Both men respected certain European agents and agencies, but the NID had done analyses of projected NATO and EU behavior. Unless the politicians pulled their heads out of their asses and stopped drinking the “end of history” koolaid, it was going to be a disaster at
some point. Especially if the US stopped bankrolling NATO.
“I take it you’re looking to get some of our people in that way?” Simmons asked.
Nodding, Maybourne sipped his own coffee. “If they’re going out of their way to marginalize us at Cheyenne Mountain and Area 51, they can’t argue with our presence at a base on foreign soil.
Someone needs to represent the US intelligence community and liaise with the Euros.”
Of course, having so many prying eyes on site would make any kind of covert activity hard to accomplish, but the boys and girls of the NID were good at figuring out how to make the sneaky practical.
“Anyway, we’re in a holding pattern until we get official word,” Maybourne continued, picking up a manilla folder. “Have you seen the memos about the Middle East and China?”
Simmons nodded and narrowed his eyes. “Reading between the lines, it seems like something in that future information spooked the people upstairs.”
“Well, we’ve been saying the CIA’s fuck-fuck games in the Middle East were bound to blow up in their faces sooner or later.” Maybourne gave Simmons a thin smile. “I’m giving you a team to work on counterinsurgency in the region. That’s the official story.”
“Unofficially?” Simmons smirked as he took another sip of coffee.
“If you can find some way to make those two problems cancel each other out, that’d probably be best for everyone.” Maybourne leaned back in his chair, unable to keep his smug expression in check. “Let’s face it, the politicians
love it whenever we don’t have to get involved in keeping everyone’s heads on straight.”
Politicians were short-sighted fools, concerned with keeping their jobs and spouting enough platitudes to get money and votes to do so. And since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the easy way to do it was to sell the idea that everything was always going to get better. It either never occurred to these people, or was just a future problem they didn’t think they’d have to deal with, that to keep the good times going, the US would have to be the top dog forever.
It was people like him and Simmons, who recognized that
power was the only thing that ensured that the people on top
stayed on top and had long term vision, that solved the problems on a geopolitical scale. And in the process, kept their own positions secure, if not improved them, while also keeping the short-sighted politicos from running into pesky little problems like their country
getting invaded. The politicians were willing to look the other way so long as you didn’t get caught, in which case… Oliver North was a good example of being hung out to dry.
So, as far as Harry Maybourne was concerned, no one had any legs to stand on when it came to complaining about the NID,
especially his operations. He didn’t have any massive screw ups on his record, unlike those jokers at the CIA who had to assassinate Kennedy to keep him from shutting them down and botched the recovery of a Soviet submarine. That made them the
perfect choice for defending Earth from the threats on the other side of the stargate.
He just had to make
everyone else realize that.
Author's Notes: Here's an early Christmas gift for you all!
For people wondering what the island the Tok'ra and xenomorph hybrids got exiled to looks like,
here's an image! I used
Mapgen4 to make this, which is a free tool for making maps for roleplaying and what not. Very useful for visualizing things for a story.
To keep the xenomorph hybrids from being completely busted, because AFAIK xenomorph lifespan is literally "until they die" and the initial growth curve is insane, I capped them off at a 100 year lifespan and a less aggressive growth curve for individuals and populations. Enough to be scary for baseline homo sapiens sapiens, not bad enough to go "nuke the site from orbit" on sheer principle.
The biology of the Goa'uld isn't examined in
that much detail in canon, so it's not clear how or why some become queens. I figure it has to be genetic to
some degree, which makes it a nice stumbling block for the Tok'ra. I also figured the Tok'ra would keep a bunch of Egeria's non-sapient spawn for research purposes and try to see if they could genetically engineer a way out of their declining population count.
I read
The Imagineers of War, which chronicles the history of DARPA, a couple of months ago, and gave me the inspiration for the NID's backstory. The internal conflict over Project AGILE was real - the head of ARPA really did hate the head of AGILE, but for a whole host of reasons, didn't have the leverage to kick AGILE out of ARPA. In the Stargate universe, things worked out differently, so they have one more deep state agency that's full of themselves and thinks they're the only smart, effective people in the nation. And yes, they're down the street from SG DARPA.
