Prelude: The Master
deathzealotzero
Mecha Guru
Disclaimer: The following is a fanfiction story; therefore, I, as the author, do not own anything that is associated with the franchise known as Stargate. It is owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Please support the official release!
Brief Foreword
So, I would like to welcome you all to the second version of my Pathfinder story, which will follow the adventures and such of the USS Prometheus, the first human space warship ever built by human hands. Along with its crew! As mentioned, I did do a version of this story a few years ago, but it kind of grinds down to a halt after a few written chapters. I did want to do a fundamental rewrite, just going through the already-written chapters and changing a few minor things. However, that never became a thing; therefore, I just generally forgot about it until I went through some old files that had a rewritten first half of the story's first chapter, and I got the idea for this story.
Okay, that said, there are going to be some things different from the original version of this story, as I had wanted to generally follow the overall timeline, the story, and much of the Stargate SG-1 series. However, that would be quite different in this version of events, as I think that kind of threw a wrench into my plans for the earlier version of the story. Hence, I am totally going to be changing some things here and there with the timeline of the series. For example, the Disclosure meeting between the ambassadors of the various countries of the UN Security Council will happen soon after the start of the story, which is around season six and not during the season five storyline. The other significant change to the story would have the Asgard not just give the SGC and Earth itself plans for their stuff like beaming tech. As I always thought that was a bit of a cheat in the scheme of things. Instead, the Asgard will work alongside and train human engineers to create something like a new hyperdrive or the weapons on the ship itself. The rest of the changes to the original story and that of the Stargate SG-1 story would be smaller than those two significant changes but still will change some things. So be warned!
Okay. I do believe I talked enough about what I am changing with this version of the story, and it is time to get to the main event. I hope you all enjoy the story and everything! Thanks for reading!
Prelude: The Master
The USS Prometheus, while officially a prototype design, was still quite a solid space warship design, especially after its first major refit. It would turn that first prototype design from a general basic concept of a space warship to a proper space warship that would be pretty capable and go up against more than one Goa'uld Ha'tak Class Mothership and win. It did this with general human ingenuity, human experience in naval combat, and the help of the Asgard, who worked with human engineers to create things like a completely new hyperspace drive design after the failure of the original drive of the ship. However, even the most powerful warship in the entire galaxy would be nothing without the men and women who would crew the vessel. Not to mention the ship's overall commander, which with the Prometheus would be Air Force Officer and veteran NASA Astronaut Colonel Lionel Pendergast who go a long way in making the Prometheus into one of the most famous ships of humanity's infant space force…
- The Pathfinder: A Look Into The Human's First Space Warship
Area 32-92 – "The Yard"
Northern Mojave, Nevada
United States, Earth
September 7, 2003AD
As the small personnel elevator descended ever downwards, the figure of Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast of the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration could only frown in some concern. He had been a member of the United States Air Force for over twenty years since his early twenties and seconded to NASA, the United States' leading governmental space agency, for the last decade. He had been reasonable for various things inside the space agency, including commanding six Space Shuttle missions and helping with the construction of the new International Space Station. Then there were a couple of different military-only missions using the Space Shuttle, which he couldn't talk about at all. It had been quite a while since he had been yanked around like this by the Air Force and the rest of the United States military. Not to mention dragged somewhere that did not officially exist to his knowledge. A small shack in the middle of nowhere that hid a small elevator he was now in and located several miles from the facility known as Area 51 or the Groom Lake Facility. It was quite a headache for him to be dragged out here, and he briefly speculated in the safety of his mind that it was something to do with aliens. No matter how crazy that happened to be, making Pendergast mentally snorted before shaking his head. He turned his attention to the other uniformed Air Force officer that currently shared the elevator with him and who had met him at McCarron International Airport to escort him to this mysterious facility.
"So, Major, can you tell me anything about this facility?" he asked, tired of the silence from the man since they first met after greeting one another at the airport and the couple hour-long drive from Las Vegas. The man turned to him with a slight smirk on his face before replying.
"I am sorry, sir, I cannot say anything till you have been briefed and signed your Non-Disclosure Agreements. After that, General Ronson will brief you on this project and everything aligned with said project," the man mentioned, and with that, the elevator finally slowed down. Pendergast blinked in some surprise at this and the outright amusement he picked up on in the body language of the younger officer. However, before he could say anything to that, the elevator stopped, and the doors hissed silently to show the two of them a short passageway leading right to a large armored hatchway. Pendergast's eyebrows rose in surprise at not only the hatch itself but the full squad of fully geared-up Air Force Security Force soldiers standing guard around the hatch itself. He followed the younger Air Force officer down the short passage but was quickly led up down a slightly hidden side passage that sported other branching passages that led elsewhere in the facility giving Pendergast the impression that the facility was relatively more extensive than he first thought when he arrived. Before finally, the two officers arrived at a regular-sized wooden door. After a quick knock and a quiet reply, the Major ushered Pendergast into a small busy-looking office which sported a large covered window on one wall and a large desk taking up the opposite wall. Standing in front of the desk was an older man in a US Air Force Class B Uniform with the single star of a Brigadier General on the collar.
"General, Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast," the Major mentioned with a wave of his arm towards Pendergast before turning slightly and waving an arm back at the General, "Colonel Pendergast, General William Ronson."
"General," Pendergast said with a cautious air and a salute which the other man returned with a slight smile on his face before reaching out with a hand.
"Colonel Pendergast, a pleasure to meet you finally," the man replied, shaking his hand before turning to look at the Major who had escorted him to the facility.
"Majors thank you for escorting him here, and I shall see you in Washington at the next security conference," the General mentioned with a nod dismissing the younger officer.
"Sir," the man replied with a salute of his own and turned to walk back through the door leaving behind a confused-looking Lieutenant Colonel and a slightly amused General behind in the small office. That done, the General turned his attention back to Colonel Pendergast.
"Colonel, I like to be the first to welcome you to the Yard," he mentioned with a short wave of his hand towards their surroundings. Before turning to stride towards his desk and taking a seat behind it while nodding his head for Pendergast to take a seat in front of the desk, who did so looking a bit confused at what in the world was going on here. The General looked at him briefly before nodding and sliding a regular old manilla folder across the desk towards the other officer.
"Before we get started, Colonel, you need to sign these NDAs and other such paperwork," he mentioned now with a stone-like face making Lionel a bit worried about what was going on here. Still, he only sighed and opened the folder. Inside the folder were the standard-looking NDA Documents he had become quite familiar with over his years with both the Air Force and NASA, including those space missions he did solely for the US military. Nodding, he gave it a quick read-through. Before he signed along the bottom and moved to the second page in the folder, his eyebrow rose in some shock for this version of the NDA he had only heard about in stories from his older colleagues in the Air Force. From the bad old days of the early Cold War against the Soviet Union. Still, after reading through this paper, he signed it as well and briefly wondered once again that whatever was going on here in the middle of the Nevada desert was far more than just a simple top-secret facility. He signed a few more pages that looked far more normal than the first two pages, mostly stuff about his reassignment and other more standard military paperwork, before finally coming across the last page, which made him blink in shock. He looked up at the General, who patiently awaited him to sign the paperwork.
"This is a form for an extended long-term deployment?" he asked the general with a narrowed gaze, for the Air Force rarely, if ever, used this form for their personnel. It was more often used by the United States Navy with lengthy cruises, often up to two years at a time. It quickly brought to mind his family, making him flinch slightly before looking back at the General. The man simply smiled with a nod before getting from the chair and moving to the large window that took up the entire opposite wall of the small office.
"Quite correct. For now, leave it right there since you signed the NDAs already; therefore, I can give you the briefing for the project and what we have planned for you. However, if you do not want to go through with what we have planned for you, there are a couple of other placements we could use you for, or you could simply return to NASA if you wish. It would not be the first time we had some people inside NASA in the know about our activities," the General mentioned now with his back to the younger Air Force officer with his hand on a nearby switch making Lionel narrow his eyes at the back of the General for that wasn't typical for the Air Force or any branch of the United States military. You went where the military needed you, and nothing would stop that outside of a few instances.
"To start the briefing, I like to introduce to one of the main objects of the said briefing, so come up here please, Colonel," the General directed with his opposite hand at his side. Sighing, Lionel did as he was directed and came alongside the General at the covered window. When he did so, the General looked at him with an almost sad smile.
"Colonel, what I am about to show you will change your life entirely even if you return to NASA. Your world will be expanded beyond your imagination. It did the same for me about three years ago. Now it's your turn," the man was saying, and before Lionel could say anything to that statement, the General hit the switch at his side, raising the armored cover over the window with a loud shudder. As it started to rise, Lionel Pendergast began to see what was on the other side of the covering. It was a vast, opened underground space with what looked like some sort of docking facility at its center. Inside said docking facility was a large gray-skinned, almost ugly-looking ship of some sort that towered over the sizeable underground dock that surrounded it. A similar-looking but still-under-construction ship graced a second bay alongside the first bay. After his first shocking realization of what it was, Lionel saw it wasn't designed for any sort of ocean, sea, or river but for the blackness of space. This second realization saw him looking over the ship with his experienced eyes for spacecraft and seeing everything about it.
"Lieutenant Colonel Pendergast, I like to introduce you to the USAF Prometheus, humanity's first-ever large-scale spacecraft and our first operational space warship," the General at his side said with a short chuckle before continuing on, "and your new assignment."
"What?" Lionel asked in surprise, tearing his eyes away from the ship to look over at the General.
"You are to take command of the Prometheus after she is finished with her latest refit, and from there, you are to take her on a little jaunt through space," he mentioned with a certain glint in his eye that hinted at more, but for now he turned back to look down at the ship in front of them.
"She is about five hundred sixteen meters in length, two hundred fifty-eight meters in width, and finally three hundred twelve meters in height. She sports seventeen decks and will have a crew of three hundred souls on board. To get around, she sports a pair of two Simms-Carter Mark I-C Sub-Light Engines, which can take the ship up to 110,000 miles a second, but the crown jewel of the ship is actually the Hyperdrive which allows the ship to be an interstellar ship. From what I understand from the engineers and physicists, this drive will allow the Prometheus to make it to Alpha Centauri in about an hour," the General mentioned with an almost proud-looking smile on his face before nodding his head at what looked to be large turret-like components along either side of the almost u-looking backplate of the ship.
"For weapons, the Prometheus sports about a dozen newly designed plasma cannons gathered into several new turrets. Including a larger main weapon, just a larger version of the smaller cannons on those turrets. Then it has a couple of missile batteries, including forward and aft-mounted torpedo batteries. Of which will be able to fire normal high explosive missiles along high-end Nuclear Warheads along their ammo magazines. Finally, for close-in defense, the Prometheus now sports quick-firing railguns spread across the ship's hull. Each of those guns is quite capable of tearing apart any modern jet fighter in under a second if they get in range," the General went on, making Lionel blink in outright shock at the heavy firepower on the ship. At this mention, Lionel looked closer at the turret-looking bits on the ship's hull to be actual turrets of some type. There are six of the weird-looking double-barrel turrets that he could see from this angle, two on the almost circular-looking endpoints of the backplate with another pair mirroring the first two just upside down from the first, and the final two further along the backplate, almost flanking the towering superstructure of the ship. Additionally, if he strained his eyes, he could see several smaller turrets all along the ship's central hull. They looked normal from up here but still maybe different as those most likely were the mentioned railgun turrets. This was no unarmed space exploration ship of NASA's future dreams but a stout space warship.
"For defenses, the ship sports an honest-to-god shield to protect itself from danger along with the ship's armored hull. All of which, combined with those mentioned railgun turrets, are to protect the ship from any threat," the General went on to further explain the ship before the two of them. Lionel blinked at the idea of a shield, but it would make some sort of sense. As outside of a few sci-fi stories, he was aware that the majority of sci-fi stories do have some kind of shield. He internally snorted at this idea before focusing on the General as he finished off his little ad-hoc briefing on the ship.
"Finally, the Prometheus can carry up to sixteen F-302B Specter Space Superiority Fighters which are launched via a single bay right beneath the ship's main superstructure, which is linked via two large elevators to that of the ship's primary hangar inside the main hull of the ship," the General finished his introduction of the ship giving a nod to the large open bay at the "base" of the ship's superstructure before turning to look the now recover and thoughtful looking Lieutenant Colonel at his side. Lionel could not even imagine such a ship and the reason for its construction, not to mention how much it must have cost to build. Or all of it could have been hidden so well.
"Now I am sure you are wondering why we need such a such that a ship that has the firepower to destroy this planet if given a chance," he mentioned with an almost sad-sounding sigh turning from the window to make towards his desk once more. Lionel blinked at this, turning to watch as the General retook his seat and retrieved an even larger folder that was bound closed with various warnings about opening it. On top of the folder was an emblem that he had never seen before, with the words Stargate Command Introduction and Operational Briefing printed beneath it.
"Take your seat, Colonel, for we are going to be here for a while since I need to read in on Project Bluebook and the overall reason for the Prometheus, along with any future sister ships to be built," the General said with a wave towards the seat in front of him. Lionel did as the general bid and retook his seat before leaning forward in his chair as the general unbound the folder.
"It all started in 1928 when…" the general started, and Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast was introduced to the overall larger world of Stargate Command and, through them, the larger galaxy along with the threats that would destroy the entire world. By the end of the briefing, the man knew that this was something that he had to do and formally accepted the position of the Prometheus Commander.
So this was originally was going to be part of the first chapter of the story, but I separated it from it when the first chapter became a bit longer than I originally planned. Basically, this chapter does give you all a brief look at the character of Colonel Lionel Pendergast, who has changed a bit from what little we do know about the character from the series itself. For one, he is not only an Air Force Officer but a veteran NASA astronaut, which is carried over from the old version of this story. He was also dragged to Nevada to be introduced to the Prometheus and the base that built her. Instead of the SGC. I actually liked it like this over once again, seeing the SGC. The other thing that has changed with his character is the bit about his family in this chapter, which will be expanded in later chapters. In the series itself, Colonel Pendergast apparently has a family, as mentioned by Mitchell at the end of the episode Ethon, but here something has happened to them. This is mostly due to Pendergast and the Prometheus going on long space cruises. Funny enough, one of my early ideas for the first version of this story was to focus on Pendergast's family and how having him away for an extended length of time saw his wife ending up somehow finding out about the Stargate Program and what her husband is doing inside said program. So I am dropping that idea from this version as it makes little sense to me. Besides, this story should focus on the good old Prommie and not someone not even part of the ship's crew.
That said. We get the first taste of this version of the Prometheus, which sports plasma weapons instead of the helical rail cannons of the original idea. We get a more thorough look at the new weapons of the ship in the next chapter. Though for those who liked the idea of the rail cannons of the first version of this idea, well, they will make an appearance on another ship. Meanwhile, if you noticed, I am using the dimensions from the Fleet Yards Videos and not the original dimensions from the DVD Collection Magazine. Outside of a slight change two the height and width of the ship from those figures. Added two meters to each of them, mainly due to the video showing the F-302 barely having any clearance for the tips of its wings when launching from the hangar. Still, I am not going to focus on how the Air Force was able to produce such a large ship in secret without anyone knowing about it. So sorry not going to explain that little fun tidbit which is the reason most have accepted the smaller dimensions of the Prometheus. Do not want to have that headache! Sorry. Oh. I almost forgot, yeah, I am not including the good!Asgard tech in this version of the Prometheus like a high-end hyperdrive and beaming tech. As I mentioned in the foreword, I never understood why outside of new shiny tech. Beaming tech always seemed like cheating to me, so outside of the ring transports, the Prommie will not have it. Shrug. As for the things that required some beaming in later seasons and the story overall, like Atlantis, I do have an interesting idea to solve that little tidbit, but it will not be in this story.
One last thing to mention is to prepare yourself for a large data dump in the next chapter. I tried to keep it down in this chapter, but that soon became a thing in the next chapter. So I do apologize for that.
Okay, I do believe that is about it for these notes. I went overboard a bit on them; I apologize for that. I was trying to keep my foreword short, which kind of saw a bit more talk here in response to that. That is about it. See you all in the next chapter!
Stargate SG-1: The Pathfinder
Version 2.0
Written by,
William R. Woods
aka, "Deathzealot", or "deathzealotzero"
Version 2.0
Written by,
William R. Woods
aka, "Deathzealot", or "deathzealotzero"
Brief Foreword
So, I would like to welcome you all to the second version of my Pathfinder story, which will follow the adventures and such of the USS Prometheus, the first human space warship ever built by human hands. Along with its crew! As mentioned, I did do a version of this story a few years ago, but it kind of grinds down to a halt after a few written chapters. I did want to do a fundamental rewrite, just going through the already-written chapters and changing a few minor things. However, that never became a thing; therefore, I just generally forgot about it until I went through some old files that had a rewritten first half of the story's first chapter, and I got the idea for this story.
Okay, that said, there are going to be some things different from the original version of this story, as I had wanted to generally follow the overall timeline, the story, and much of the Stargate SG-1 series. However, that would be quite different in this version of events, as I think that kind of threw a wrench into my plans for the earlier version of the story. Hence, I am totally going to be changing some things here and there with the timeline of the series. For example, the Disclosure meeting between the ambassadors of the various countries of the UN Security Council will happen soon after the start of the story, which is around season six and not during the season five storyline. The other significant change to the story would have the Asgard not just give the SGC and Earth itself plans for their stuff like beaming tech. As I always thought that was a bit of a cheat in the scheme of things. Instead, the Asgard will work alongside and train human engineers to create something like a new hyperdrive or the weapons on the ship itself. The rest of the changes to the original story and that of the Stargate SG-1 story would be smaller than those two significant changes but still will change some things. So be warned!
Okay. I do believe I talked enough about what I am changing with this version of the story, and it is time to get to the main event. I hope you all enjoy the story and everything! Thanks for reading!
Prelude: The Master
The USS Prometheus, while officially a prototype design, was still quite a solid space warship design, especially after its first major refit. It would turn that first prototype design from a general basic concept of a space warship to a proper space warship that would be pretty capable and go up against more than one Goa'uld Ha'tak Class Mothership and win. It did this with general human ingenuity, human experience in naval combat, and the help of the Asgard, who worked with human engineers to create things like a completely new hyperspace drive design after the failure of the original drive of the ship. However, even the most powerful warship in the entire galaxy would be nothing without the men and women who would crew the vessel. Not to mention the ship's overall commander, which with the Prometheus would be Air Force Officer and veteran NASA Astronaut Colonel Lionel Pendergast who go a long way in making the Prometheus into one of the most famous ships of humanity's infant space force…
- The Pathfinder: A Look Into The Human's First Space Warship
-o-o-o-
Area 32-92 – "The Yard"
Northern Mojave, Nevada
United States, Earth
September 7, 2003AD
As the small personnel elevator descended ever downwards, the figure of Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast of the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration could only frown in some concern. He had been a member of the United States Air Force for over twenty years since his early twenties and seconded to NASA, the United States' leading governmental space agency, for the last decade. He had been reasonable for various things inside the space agency, including commanding six Space Shuttle missions and helping with the construction of the new International Space Station. Then there were a couple of different military-only missions using the Space Shuttle, which he couldn't talk about at all. It had been quite a while since he had been yanked around like this by the Air Force and the rest of the United States military. Not to mention dragged somewhere that did not officially exist to his knowledge. A small shack in the middle of nowhere that hid a small elevator he was now in and located several miles from the facility known as Area 51 or the Groom Lake Facility. It was quite a headache for him to be dragged out here, and he briefly speculated in the safety of his mind that it was something to do with aliens. No matter how crazy that happened to be, making Pendergast mentally snorted before shaking his head. He turned his attention to the other uniformed Air Force officer that currently shared the elevator with him and who had met him at McCarron International Airport to escort him to this mysterious facility.
"So, Major, can you tell me anything about this facility?" he asked, tired of the silence from the man since they first met after greeting one another at the airport and the couple hour-long drive from Las Vegas. The man turned to him with a slight smirk on his face before replying.
"I am sorry, sir, I cannot say anything till you have been briefed and signed your Non-Disclosure Agreements. After that, General Ronson will brief you on this project and everything aligned with said project," the man mentioned, and with that, the elevator finally slowed down. Pendergast blinked in some surprise at this and the outright amusement he picked up on in the body language of the younger officer. However, before he could say anything to that, the elevator stopped, and the doors hissed silently to show the two of them a short passageway leading right to a large armored hatchway. Pendergast's eyebrows rose in surprise at not only the hatch itself but the full squad of fully geared-up Air Force Security Force soldiers standing guard around the hatch itself. He followed the younger Air Force officer down the short passage but was quickly led up down a slightly hidden side passage that sported other branching passages that led elsewhere in the facility giving Pendergast the impression that the facility was relatively more extensive than he first thought when he arrived. Before finally, the two officers arrived at a regular-sized wooden door. After a quick knock and a quiet reply, the Major ushered Pendergast into a small busy-looking office which sported a large covered window on one wall and a large desk taking up the opposite wall. Standing in front of the desk was an older man in a US Air Force Class B Uniform with the single star of a Brigadier General on the collar.
"General, Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast," the Major mentioned with a wave of his arm towards Pendergast before turning slightly and waving an arm back at the General, "Colonel Pendergast, General William Ronson."
"General," Pendergast said with a cautious air and a salute which the other man returned with a slight smile on his face before reaching out with a hand.
"Colonel Pendergast, a pleasure to meet you finally," the man replied, shaking his hand before turning to look at the Major who had escorted him to the facility.
"Majors thank you for escorting him here, and I shall see you in Washington at the next security conference," the General mentioned with a nod dismissing the younger officer.
"Sir," the man replied with a salute of his own and turned to walk back through the door leaving behind a confused-looking Lieutenant Colonel and a slightly amused General behind in the small office. That done, the General turned his attention back to Colonel Pendergast.
"Colonel, I like to be the first to welcome you to the Yard," he mentioned with a short wave of his hand towards their surroundings. Before turning to stride towards his desk and taking a seat behind it while nodding his head for Pendergast to take a seat in front of the desk, who did so looking a bit confused at what in the world was going on here. The General looked at him briefly before nodding and sliding a regular old manilla folder across the desk towards the other officer.
"Before we get started, Colonel, you need to sign these NDAs and other such paperwork," he mentioned now with a stone-like face making Lionel a bit worried about what was going on here. Still, he only sighed and opened the folder. Inside the folder were the standard-looking NDA Documents he had become quite familiar with over his years with both the Air Force and NASA, including those space missions he did solely for the US military. Nodding, he gave it a quick read-through. Before he signed along the bottom and moved to the second page in the folder, his eyebrow rose in some shock for this version of the NDA he had only heard about in stories from his older colleagues in the Air Force. From the bad old days of the early Cold War against the Soviet Union. Still, after reading through this paper, he signed it as well and briefly wondered once again that whatever was going on here in the middle of the Nevada desert was far more than just a simple top-secret facility. He signed a few more pages that looked far more normal than the first two pages, mostly stuff about his reassignment and other more standard military paperwork, before finally coming across the last page, which made him blink in shock. He looked up at the General, who patiently awaited him to sign the paperwork.
"This is a form for an extended long-term deployment?" he asked the general with a narrowed gaze, for the Air Force rarely, if ever, used this form for their personnel. It was more often used by the United States Navy with lengthy cruises, often up to two years at a time. It quickly brought to mind his family, making him flinch slightly before looking back at the General. The man simply smiled with a nod before getting from the chair and moving to the large window that took up the entire opposite wall of the small office.
"Quite correct. For now, leave it right there since you signed the NDAs already; therefore, I can give you the briefing for the project and what we have planned for you. However, if you do not want to go through with what we have planned for you, there are a couple of other placements we could use you for, or you could simply return to NASA if you wish. It would not be the first time we had some people inside NASA in the know about our activities," the General mentioned now with his back to the younger Air Force officer with his hand on a nearby switch making Lionel narrow his eyes at the back of the General for that wasn't typical for the Air Force or any branch of the United States military. You went where the military needed you, and nothing would stop that outside of a few instances.
"To start the briefing, I like to introduce to one of the main objects of the said briefing, so come up here please, Colonel," the General directed with his opposite hand at his side. Sighing, Lionel did as he was directed and came alongside the General at the covered window. When he did so, the General looked at him with an almost sad smile.
"Colonel, what I am about to show you will change your life entirely even if you return to NASA. Your world will be expanded beyond your imagination. It did the same for me about three years ago. Now it's your turn," the man was saying, and before Lionel could say anything to that statement, the General hit the switch at his side, raising the armored cover over the window with a loud shudder. As it started to rise, Lionel Pendergast began to see what was on the other side of the covering. It was a vast, opened underground space with what looked like some sort of docking facility at its center. Inside said docking facility was a large gray-skinned, almost ugly-looking ship of some sort that towered over the sizeable underground dock that surrounded it. A similar-looking but still-under-construction ship graced a second bay alongside the first bay. After his first shocking realization of what it was, Lionel saw it wasn't designed for any sort of ocean, sea, or river but for the blackness of space. This second realization saw him looking over the ship with his experienced eyes for spacecraft and seeing everything about it.
"Lieutenant Colonel Pendergast, I like to introduce you to the USAF Prometheus, humanity's first-ever large-scale spacecraft and our first operational space warship," the General at his side said with a short chuckle before continuing on, "and your new assignment."
"What?" Lionel asked in surprise, tearing his eyes away from the ship to look over at the General.
"You are to take command of the Prometheus after she is finished with her latest refit, and from there, you are to take her on a little jaunt through space," he mentioned with a certain glint in his eye that hinted at more, but for now he turned back to look down at the ship in front of them.
"She is about five hundred sixteen meters in length, two hundred fifty-eight meters in width, and finally three hundred twelve meters in height. She sports seventeen decks and will have a crew of three hundred souls on board. To get around, she sports a pair of two Simms-Carter Mark I-C Sub-Light Engines, which can take the ship up to 110,000 miles a second, but the crown jewel of the ship is actually the Hyperdrive which allows the ship to be an interstellar ship. From what I understand from the engineers and physicists, this drive will allow the Prometheus to make it to Alpha Centauri in about an hour," the General mentioned with an almost proud-looking smile on his face before nodding his head at what looked to be large turret-like components along either side of the almost u-looking backplate of the ship.
"For weapons, the Prometheus sports about a dozen newly designed plasma cannons gathered into several new turrets. Including a larger main weapon, just a larger version of the smaller cannons on those turrets. Then it has a couple of missile batteries, including forward and aft-mounted torpedo batteries. Of which will be able to fire normal high explosive missiles along high-end Nuclear Warheads along their ammo magazines. Finally, for close-in defense, the Prometheus now sports quick-firing railguns spread across the ship's hull. Each of those guns is quite capable of tearing apart any modern jet fighter in under a second if they get in range," the General went on, making Lionel blink in outright shock at the heavy firepower on the ship. At this mention, Lionel looked closer at the turret-looking bits on the ship's hull to be actual turrets of some type. There are six of the weird-looking double-barrel turrets that he could see from this angle, two on the almost circular-looking endpoints of the backplate with another pair mirroring the first two just upside down from the first, and the final two further along the backplate, almost flanking the towering superstructure of the ship. Additionally, if he strained his eyes, he could see several smaller turrets all along the ship's central hull. They looked normal from up here but still maybe different as those most likely were the mentioned railgun turrets. This was no unarmed space exploration ship of NASA's future dreams but a stout space warship.
"For defenses, the ship sports an honest-to-god shield to protect itself from danger along with the ship's armored hull. All of which, combined with those mentioned railgun turrets, are to protect the ship from any threat," the General went on to further explain the ship before the two of them. Lionel blinked at the idea of a shield, but it would make some sort of sense. As outside of a few sci-fi stories, he was aware that the majority of sci-fi stories do have some kind of shield. He internally snorted at this idea before focusing on the General as he finished off his little ad-hoc briefing on the ship.
"Finally, the Prometheus can carry up to sixteen F-302B Specter Space Superiority Fighters which are launched via a single bay right beneath the ship's main superstructure, which is linked via two large elevators to that of the ship's primary hangar inside the main hull of the ship," the General finished his introduction of the ship giving a nod to the large open bay at the "base" of the ship's superstructure before turning to look the now recover and thoughtful looking Lieutenant Colonel at his side. Lionel could not even imagine such a ship and the reason for its construction, not to mention how much it must have cost to build. Or all of it could have been hidden so well.
"Now I am sure you are wondering why we need such a such that a ship that has the firepower to destroy this planet if given a chance," he mentioned with an almost sad-sounding sigh turning from the window to make towards his desk once more. Lionel blinked at this, turning to watch as the General retook his seat and retrieved an even larger folder that was bound closed with various warnings about opening it. On top of the folder was an emblem that he had never seen before, with the words Stargate Command Introduction and Operational Briefing printed beneath it.
"Take your seat, Colonel, for we are going to be here for a while since I need to read in on Project Bluebook and the overall reason for the Prometheus, along with any future sister ships to be built," the General said with a wave towards the seat in front of him. Lionel did as the general bid and retook his seat before leaning forward in his chair as the general unbound the folder.
"It all started in 1928 when…" the general started, and Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast was introduced to the overall larger world of Stargate Command and, through them, the larger galaxy along with the threats that would destroy the entire world. By the end of the briefing, the man knew that this was something that he had to do and formally accepted the position of the Prometheus Commander.
-o-End-o-
So this was originally was going to be part of the first chapter of the story, but I separated it from it when the first chapter became a bit longer than I originally planned. Basically, this chapter does give you all a brief look at the character of Colonel Lionel Pendergast, who has changed a bit from what little we do know about the character from the series itself. For one, he is not only an Air Force Officer but a veteran NASA astronaut, which is carried over from the old version of this story. He was also dragged to Nevada to be introduced to the Prometheus and the base that built her. Instead of the SGC. I actually liked it like this over once again, seeing the SGC. The other thing that has changed with his character is the bit about his family in this chapter, which will be expanded in later chapters. In the series itself, Colonel Pendergast apparently has a family, as mentioned by Mitchell at the end of the episode Ethon, but here something has happened to them. This is mostly due to Pendergast and the Prometheus going on long space cruises. Funny enough, one of my early ideas for the first version of this story was to focus on Pendergast's family and how having him away for an extended length of time saw his wife ending up somehow finding out about the Stargate Program and what her husband is doing inside said program. So I am dropping that idea from this version as it makes little sense to me. Besides, this story should focus on the good old Prommie and not someone not even part of the ship's crew.
That said. We get the first taste of this version of the Prometheus, which sports plasma weapons instead of the helical rail cannons of the original idea. We get a more thorough look at the new weapons of the ship in the next chapter. Though for those who liked the idea of the rail cannons of the first version of this idea, well, they will make an appearance on another ship. Meanwhile, if you noticed, I am using the dimensions from the Fleet Yards Videos and not the original dimensions from the DVD Collection Magazine. Outside of a slight change two the height and width of the ship from those figures. Added two meters to each of them, mainly due to the video showing the F-302 barely having any clearance for the tips of its wings when launching from the hangar. Still, I am not going to focus on how the Air Force was able to produce such a large ship in secret without anyone knowing about it. So sorry not going to explain that little fun tidbit which is the reason most have accepted the smaller dimensions of the Prometheus. Do not want to have that headache! Sorry. Oh. I almost forgot, yeah, I am not including the good!Asgard tech in this version of the Prometheus like a high-end hyperdrive and beaming tech. As I mentioned in the foreword, I never understood why outside of new shiny tech. Beaming tech always seemed like cheating to me, so outside of the ring transports, the Prommie will not have it. Shrug. As for the things that required some beaming in later seasons and the story overall, like Atlantis, I do have an interesting idea to solve that little tidbit, but it will not be in this story.
One last thing to mention is to prepare yourself for a large data dump in the next chapter. I tried to keep it down in this chapter, but that soon became a thing in the next chapter. So I do apologize for that.
Okay, I do believe that is about it for these notes. I went overboard a bit on them; I apologize for that. I was trying to keep my foreword short, which kind of saw a bit more talk here in response to that. That is about it. See you all in the next chapter!