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Stargate: Do Over

Chapter 06, Stargate.

The meeting in October had some interesting results.

The Soviets proclaimed the weapon's development was intended for Planetary defense against alien spaceships. As proof of that, they pointed out how the blast's energy was expelled outside the atmosphere. As much of the energy punctured up and through it. Something smaller nukes did not do, making this bomb 'obviously' useless for any other use.

The Asurans summarily told the nuclear armed powers that their nukes were, for the most part, worthless against alien ships, due to shields and that their continued testing on the planet would only cause damage to the Earth itself. They were told the damage caused by the approximately 109Mt (Megaton) blast was immense and that the Asuran fleet was trying to do its best to limit its effects, but would be unable to repair much of the damage. That earned the Soviets quite a bit of bad rep.

Following that, they were all scolded for dragging their feet in respect to the first challenge. Everyone present found extreme offense in that, they were certainly not dragging their feet! Furthermore most of the world's nations had not made any official declarations about the challenges.

The most surprising thing that happened, happened during one of the breaks. Ramaswamy Venkataraman, the Indian Prime Minister and Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese President, had a little talk while looking at their home planet via the large window. They reached an agreement, one which shook everyone else.

The Indian Prime Minister made the announcement to the group of world leaders, on behalf of both of them - the Chinese leader indicating his assent with a nod – that India and China represented over two billion people out of a global estimate of around five billion total. As such, if there was to be an attempt at completing the first challenge, they would not be dictated terms. On the contrary, they would be the ones doing any dictating.

The first challenge spoke only of population representation, not of economical strength, military prowess or technological superiority. Something the two leaders took to heart.

That announcement lit a flame on everyone else's trousers.

It also finally made it clear that almost every nation was indeed interested in attempting these challenges.

Every represented nation that had not previously been allowed access to the research surrounding the Stargate, now demanded it. And demanded their own scientists try their hand at making it work.

SGSGSGSGSG

December 1991

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex had changed from being one of the most secret and classified bases in the world, to being the host of the most public international endeavor.

Time was running out, nine months had passed and they still had not figured out the Stargate. Not until today.

A few days ago seven-year-old Eli Wallace had drawn some cubes with his markers, with a dot in the center and a line connecting the central dot to another dot outside. He would sneak around the labs and meeting rooms all over the base and leave copies of his drawings. The adult scientists all thought he did not belong there, but the name dropping at the U.S. president's ear had brought even this child in, in the hope he was some kind of kid-genius. No one gave him or his drawing any mind. He was a kid after all!

That was until Dr. Zelenka found one of them inside one of his briefing dossiers, he had no idea how it got there but he had seen a similar childish drawing at least twice before, ignoring it completely both times. This time though, he had an epiphany.

The whole of Cheyenne Mountain was a madhouse for days after that.

Just over nine months after Contact Day as they called it, they finally got the Stargate to work. Today was an historic occasion on Earth, the first day that everyone with access to a TV screen watched the wormhole's unstable vortex, the kawoosh, burst out of the ring device.

Many of those people would be watching that event happen on the small screen, while holding a newborn baby. Maternity wards the world over were overflowing beyond capacity and would remain so for a while. This was to be the beginning of the Great Baby Boom, one which would surpass the previous one, from WW2, by a very wide margin.

SGSGSGSGSG

Daniel was still missing. Sam and Jack had thought only two possible scenarios could have happened. Either Daniel had been secreted away somewhere, for interrogation, or Daniel had left Earth somehow and gone to Abydos to be with Sha're. They had been reassured repeatedly that no country had Daniel in their possession. There was a still an ongoing international search for him, with a large reward offered for any information that would lead to finding him.

After his last movements had been tracked they began believing that no one truly knew were he was. Sam and Jack had stopped asking and had even become cryptic on the matter altogether. Since the Asurans had not said anything about Daniel, they suspected he was fine somewhere off-world. They even thought Daniel was the lucky one.

For these past few months Jack had been bored out of his mind. Writing report after report about any planet he'd visited, had gotten old very quickly. Sam had been doing the same. But she had also been doing research, lots and lots of research. Her main agitation had been the need to use supercomputers to do something like a simple simulation, instead of her personal laptop... the one she had custom-built in the future and which would have been faster than most of today's supercomputers.

All those written reports were left incomplete without a stargate address or designation or any information that could be considered cheating for the second challenge. That information was to be added later.

They watched, remotely via a video link, the event of the stargate being activated. When the Monitor showed the kawoosh, they exhaled the breath both were holding.

"Finally!" Jack said, "I was bored to death three months ago! This has been the worst form of torture, ever."

"I am officially on vacation. Let them go find some real computers out there first. I can't stand nineties computers any more. Ugh, I need a break!" Said a yawning Sam. She was in charge of so many research projects, it was inhumane. She had immersed herself in work, so that she wouldn't have any free time to think about Jack... and him still being married to Sarah... and Charlie still being alive in this timeline. She was glad for him, she was. But it was so unfair!

Due to the Asurans wearing their faces as it were; and their names being in the challenges marked as counting as 'outside help' in regards to the second challenge. They had become famous, or infamous depending on how you look at it. Many thought they were aliens, some revered them as angels, others considered them demons. Yet others wanted to kidnap them and extract every last piece of information out of them and damn the consequences. Very few people knew about General Hammond, as his part in the events had been kept secret.

They were of course being guarded better than anyone else in the world right now. They had been surprised to find out it was Maybourne who had originally blown the whistle on their predicament. They were also surprised when he was assigned to head their protective details. They were uncomfortable with that choice at first but, as they were confined on base, for now, they learned to live with it.

All the hubbub surrounding them did cause some friction with people they knew. Family and friends, most did not know what to think about them. Some were standing by them, while others had already cut loose.

They kept watching the screen as a MALP look-alike was sent through the gate to Abydos.

Telemetry and video from the MALP inside the Abydos pyramid started coming in, then sparkly columns of light appeared and a copy of each Asuran line transported in a flash.

"Finally!" The Jack O'Neill copy said.

"Took you long enough." The Daniel Jackson copy said.

"Well, congratulations. You're one step closer to beating the second challenge!" The Samantha Carter copy said. "Now what you have to do is beat the first challenge." She added with a smirk.

SGSGSGSGSG

Now that they figured out how to use the gate, Sam, Jack and Hammond were invited to Cheyenne Mountain. Sam had lots of improvements she wanted to do to the Earth-designed Dialing computer that no one here could possibly know about yet. They were also both charged in recommending planets to visit; everyone was already aware the gate went to more than one planet.

Everyone gave Sam and Jack weird looks, Hammond was spared as he was not particularly recognized. No one here had officially been told about the 'future memory download' part of things although many guessed something was amiss. They all thought these were two of the aliens, nobody told them they actually were the originals, moving in to the base. But why were aliens being escorted by armed guards to the 'SGC', as it was now being called, was anyone's wild guess. The aliens were known to be able to pop in anywhere, do whatever they wanted and then disappear.

Most of the senior SGC personnel and the top international scientists, all gathered to one of the largest rooms in the base, a recently created briefing theater that could house two hundred people.

And they were briefed.

About everything.

SGSGSGSGSG

The same briefing theater was again filled the next day and the day after that until finally the discussion focused on the planets they would choose to visit.

The first planet the two 'experts' recommended for visit was Abydos. Everyone else disagreed since it was a Goa'uld planet after all. They countered that they had sent a MALP there and they would have to at least retrieve it. Plus, they also revealed that they thought Daniel would be there.

That caught everyone's attention. Some questioned their sanity. To which they responded by revealing the existence of Osiris' Archaic Tel'tak, which was what they both thought Daniel had taken and left to go see his future wife, Sha're.

After some arguing and demands for explanation on why they had not been told of this before. Things went surprisingly smoother. They briefed them about several safe planets that would be good candidates for visiting. They also listed several civilizations that would be good candidates for helping in a significant manner as the challenge required.

Someone asked why not help all of them? The feeling was shared by several other scientists. But they were uncertain if they could handle some of the special cases yet, for instance, curing The Touched or removing the nanites from the Argosians.

They also pointed out that many of the civilizations they could contact would need special care and extensive planning before any mission to do so.

They gave them as many stargate addresses as they could remember, but pointed out they could not remember them all. They did mention the Abydos Cartouche though, that contained many of the addresses known to the Goa'uld.

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Abydos was indeed the first planet visited. Jack had insisted he be in this one to find Daniel. No one wanted to let him go because it could prove dangerous. He insisted and pointed out he'd done it before.

When the mission was given a green light, Jack was excited to go. When he went to see the gathering team being prepped, they were all wearing some sort of NASA-style spacesuits. He laughed at their faces and told them to remove all the junk.

The team, wearing quickly put-together disguises, clothes that would not stand out in Abydos - and not space suits - infiltrated the city and Jack quietly looked for any sign of Sha're, Daniel, Kasuf or Skaara, for a whole day. They came up short. But eventually Jack saw someone familiar and started trying to talk with him.

Soon enough, they were in front of Kasuf. He quietly listened to Jack ask him about Daniel and Sha're for a long time. After a long moment of thought he decided to speak one word.

"Ernest."

None of the others understood, but Jack did. He thanked Kasuf and left.

The team quickly made their way out, while planting several surveillance devices along the way. It had been decided to sit back and quietly observe Abydos for the time being.

Earth was not in a hurry to go after Ra, the third challenge didn't really have a time limit and Sam and Jack had both expressed the need to at least advance technologically a little more, before they attempted it.

SGSGSGSGSG

Sam was now charged with figuring out a way to power the gate in Heliopolis, while they didn't even have a prototype Naquadah generator... Although, she could make one. They had provided addresses for planets known to have Naquadah that were not Goa'uld occupied, but mining operations there would still take a while to develop. So she would have to figure out how to use 1990's energy generation technology portable enough to fit through the gate and power the gate on the other side, so the people there could dial Earth. 'Or, we could call the Orbanians!' Sam thought.

In the mean time, it was a one way trip. A few volunteers were sent to Heliopolis, who did find Daniel and Sha're, and several other Abydonians, including Skaara. Apparently, Daniel took some of the Abydonians with him for an adventure, he had picked them all up in his ship and brought them with him, or so they said.

A team of engineers was sent to fortify the structure so it would not collapse, further than the work the Abydonians had been able to do already. Daniel was adamant he was staying there for the foreseeable future, even after they enabled two-way travel, hoping he would be able to learn things from Heliopolis that they had failed to learn the last time.

Everyone was also excited to have access to a ship, with a hyperdrive. Even if it was a very old Goa'uld model. So, more volunteers were sent to begin studying the ship.

Daniel was elated when a team of linguists were also sent through the gate to help him, but greatly annoyed when another person arrived for the purpose of squeezing every last bit of intelligence information out of his head. He was busy! Couldn't they see that?

SGSGSGSGSG

Once travel began to take place to other planets and they started seeing amazing technologies, the world leaders picked up the pace on the diplomacy front even more. They knew they would 'get help' with the technologies they found, after they achieved the first challenge.

The first two worlds with interesting technologies they visited, were the Volsinii's planet, where the faulty 'Gamekeeper' AI was keeping everyone in the VR environment by force and the Palazians from P3X-289, where the atmosphere was toxic and the remaining survivors were all inside a 'dome'.

A dome which was losing power.

The neural interface technologies on both planets had great potential. They could potentially be used to 'create' highly trained people at will by teaching them everything instantly and they also had possible commercial applications. Interestingly, Jack advised against researching that technology; but he was overruled.

The dome itself was another thing they really wanted to figure out.

The not-quite-stasis technology of the Volsinii had other applications as well.

Plus they got to have a look at myriad other little things that were interesting to their own right, the computer hardware, the power generators, everything.

It's worth noting that by helping either one of these two peoples, they would be achieving the second challenge. They had already visited more than ten other safe worlds, they just needed to significantly 'help' one civilization, as the challenge required.

But there still was the issue of Unification as they were calling it back home.

SGSGSGSGSG

While the diplomats were still going at a snail's pace, there was a loose agreement by the major powers to carefully explore other planets.

They planted recording devices on many worlds.

They found numerous alien technologies on many planets.

Including an entire ship with people in stasis. The recently crashed Stromos, containing the last surviving Talthuns. Who they gladly helped with the condition they be allowed to study the technologies on the ship.

Earth was beginning to have quite a bit of an alien refugee population. That situation did of course have its problems, but not as many as they initially thought it would. They actually preferred to keep them on Earth, for now, so that news of their technological rise would not reach Goa'uld ears.

It also helped that the gains in knowledge greatly outweighed any costs.

Time passed while they very carefully gathered more and more intelligence on many hostile planets. Slowly building up information networks they would one day need to use against the Goa'uld. The Talthuns and others willing to help, helped develop miniature bugs that had visual and audio recording capabilities. They had let them loose through the gate network.

They did not want to take the big step of the third challenge yet, not until the ink was at least dry in the Unification treaty.

That, took almost another full year.

SGSGSGSGSG

Friday, October 16th, 1992

On this day the people of Earth had one thing on their mind only. The grand ceremony taking place today in Hong Kong for the signing of the Unification Treaty.

After the diplomatic talks had seriously began, it had taken a year to iron out all the details and agreements to achieve it all.

China had pulled its weight and demanded the seat for this new global administration be Hong Kong. They also had requested the British immediately transfer sovereignty of the city, which would be put under a special administrative region status of China.

Almost everyone else was agreeable to the Chinese request, they did not have much say in the matter. The British counter-offer however, was complete independence for Hong Kong, with it becoming Earth's capital district with its own local self-governance.

The interesting thing happened when the Chinese, during a bad day of other disagreements, had agreed... but they had spitefully added the stipulation that this new nation would be in full administrative control of any unclaimed land on earth, including Antarctica and of all celestial bodies in the Solar system. The Chinese diplomats were expecting hell to pay for that and they actually were planning to let go of the Hong Kong thing altogether and simply ask for Shanghai to be the capital.

That stipulation nearly tore everything down, but a select few people saw how this would completely solve any future claims of sovereignty across the Solar System, not to mention how it probably also solved all problems with the Antarctica outpost. Which they were still trying to reach. After a lot of convincing, others saw it that way too.

And this is how the Capital was born. A new independent nation, the first one to hold land not on Earth.

This was the opposite of what had been recently happening, many of the previous nations had by now united in localized Federations and other looser or stronger Unions.

Many of the African nations were now The United African Federation, much of Europe was now the European Union. The Asia Pacific island nations were now The Asia Pacific Union. The USSR had renamed itself United States of Eurasia and they annexed Afghanistan, by force, after having already peacefully absorbed all previous satellite states except Romania and also absorbed Cuba and Mozambique under a special status. This name change gave the Americans quite a bit of annoyance, since they would not be the only United States any more. The Cuba issue caused many a headache for both Americans and Rusians, but the Cubans themselves solved it by proposing that no nukes be placed on their soil and having a low active-duty military personnel cap in place during peace time. China had absorbed both Koreas unilaterally, but with minimal argument from the Russians and the Americans. They eyed Taiwan with interest too, but did not wish to start WW3 over it, so they left that matter hanging.

Afghanistan and the two Korean nations did try to make a fuss, but without much success. Some nations voiced their objections in support of them, but more than a few were content those regions were someone else's problem now.

The only ones that completely failed to get along were a few hold outs in the Middle East and South America. Not all nations there, but a few of what remained after Saudi Arabia absorbed Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the U.A.E.; after the U.S.A. peacefully absorbed Mexico, Costa Rica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, incorporated their overseas territories and annexed Panama. Panama was technically annexed by force but without firing a single shot.

In South America, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil had formed the South American Union, some of the smaller countries there were now struggling to remain independent.

The primary bad hats were Iran and Venezuela. They, along with a few other countries, were resistant to the global sweeping changes. Even to the point of withdrawing from most international diplomatic functions and closing their borders.

Iraq had stopped being a loud problem after a few surgical operations removed its leadership, surprisingly, half of the teams sent had been Spetsnaz the other half were Seals. Iraq was otherwise left alone, but in a very messy state.

The number of sovereign nations on the planet had dropped to under 100.

The oil producing countries had tried to make huge waves when they got a whiff that they would soon no longer be of consequence due to new energy technologies. Many of the scientists, that had seen those technologies, mentioned that an oil shortage would be a good thing, by virtue of forcing everyone to drop that wasteful source of energy.

And so the world moved on.

The global Unification, virtually guaranteed that no two Earth superpowers would make war with one another ever again. The few hold-outs became irrelevant isolated states overnight. The record showed eighty three nations as signatories, five as non-signing observes and six abstaining completely. There also a few extraterrestrial observers recognized in the treaty, namely the Asurans, Talthuns, Volsinii and Palazians.

A few nations were unrecognized as such, for instance Taiwan. No one pushed to fix that issue at the moment, Unification did not promise Utopia after all. Besides, that was a UN issue, the UN remained to be the diplomatic body that handled internal, Earth-only matters. But mistakes of the U.N. past were learned and applied in the creation of the new treaty and system. It was designed to not be optional nor superficial and certainly in no way potentially irrelevant, but binding to everyone involved.

Unification did not officially take away sovereignty but it did do a lot more than the first achievement required. On top of the 'Global Military Command', 'Interplanetary Diplomatic Corps' and 'Global Science and Technology Administration'. They had added 'Department of Holdings and Colonization', 'Interstellar Commerce and Resources Administration' and 'Interstellar Crisis Management'. The last three were to be 'lower' branches to respectively manage any colonization moves from Earth as well as any outposts, explore other systems for much needed resources as well as facilitate trade with other worlds and provide an interstellar Peace Corps of sorts to provide aid where necessary. There was also a 'Galactic Intelligence Agency', but no one ever spoke about that one in public.

People the world over partied for the full day and night after the treaty signing.

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The next day the Global Representative Grand Assembly, assembled for the first time. The entire session was occupied with ceremony, congratulations and hopeful speeches. In a way, a continuation of yesterday's party. Normal assembly operations were to begin on Monday.

For now the three representatives from each nation were appointed by their respective governments, but many of the nations planned to later have their representation be elected in national elections. The assembly's voting, when called for, had been decided to be 'weighted' based upon the population each nation represented, this was in line with what the Asurans had indicated with their population representation stipulation in the first challenge and people took it to heart. There was no UN-style security council veto power, but they devised a simple 'marker' system to assure that the most populous super-nations did not always drive every vote. Each representative could call one marker per year, if three such markers were 'called' during a vote, then that vote would need a two-thirds majority to pass instead of simple majority. If six were called, the vote would need a three-quarters majority. And finally, if nine markers were called, then the vote would be dropped altogether, for at least a year. Each nation could only call one marker per vote, so that the markers called would have to come from separate nations.

They had decided on each nation having three representatives with different skill-sets. One was to be a diplomat, or a politician as is often the case. The second a high level military official; and the third an academic, usually also an acclaimed scientist in his or her field. This form of representation had been something decided upon early on so it would satisfy the first challenge on its own. Regardless of the later changes, they kept it on. Officially, they could each vote their own conscience separately, carrying the weight of one third of their nation's vote. Although in future practice a nation's representatives would most often vote the same, even if personal consciences would rather go stray.

The 'Grand Assembly' was temporarily to be held in an auditorium where all representatives from all nations could sit, if a bit cramped. The buildings that were to be used in the future had not even left the design stage yet.

There were also individual administration buildings planned for the other branches. For the moment they were hosted wherever they could be hosted.

The Grand Assembly would pick its representative-voted 'High Council' on the next session. The High Council would be composed of nine people, three from each of the main three branches and they would keep the office for three years. The High Council had power to make binding executive decisions on its own, for matters concerning the whole planet. They could do so without consulting the assembly, when they deemed it necessary. The Grand Assembly did have the power to remove High Councilors by calling for a vote of no confidence at any time, but doing so required two thirds of the remaining votes in the population-weighted voting system.

Unlike the voting system of the assembly, the High council would simply count an individual vote per councilor. This was deemed necessary, to keep them equal with one another. It's also worth noting that the number of councilors precluded a stalemate.

Another three representatives from each branch would act as a Lower Council for their own respective branches, their term would also last three years and they were given executive management powers over their branches. The other, smaller, branches were to be separately staffed and lead by three representatives each, chosen by the Grand Assembly. Apart from the Grand Assembly it was expected that each branch could and would use the assembly's facilities to have their own separate sessions when needed. There were to be three rotating chairmen selected to preside over the day to day operations and keep the civility of it all. A chairman would, for the most part, be the person with the gavel, the referee in any ruckus during sessions, nothing more.

The number three had acquired something of a religious fervor in the Unification Treaty's design. Partly due to there being three types of the mysterious Asurans. For who they still knew very little about.

SGSGSGSGSG

Sunday, October 18th, 1992

Two days after the signing, there was a large scale organized revolution centered in Beijing and other large Chinese cities. Apparently a large group of the population did not like the idea that their government was planning to do everything in its power to free other planets from oppression, yet maintain the political oppression in China as-is. They had planned their concerted action to happen on the first Sunday after the treaty signing.

The world held its breath while the events unfolded.

Moscow almost had another coup when hard liners saw the events in China taking place. Within hours they mobilized to prevent something similar from happening in their own regions. Gorbachev surprisingly responded by demanding the hard-liner leaders' immediate retirement from all matters military and political. That resulted in their attempt to overthrow Gorbachev immediately, but the people had heard and liked his response. They flooded the streets and stopped the armies. Gorbachev had smelled the roses as it were and he made a 'spontaneous' speech declaring that any state within the union wishing to change its form or method of government must do so peacefully by popular vote and added that no such movement would be prosecuted. This would later have the peculiar side-effect that, in those states where communism wanted to remain standing, they would have to take steps in their management to truly be popular.

For the rest of the day the world held its breath, just in case.

SGSGSGSGSG

Monday October 19th, 1992

The Grand Assembly begun its second session with vacant Chinese seats. Today they hastily changed the schedule, so they would merely be presenting some of the most successful missions undertaken through the Stargate already. They held back the vote for the High Council and other administrative positions for another day until the new Chinese representatives could be chosen. By quiet assent, since they did not have a leadership yet, the Governor of Hong Kong took the mantle for this one day.

The Asurans were present in the assembly to make good on the first challenge's prize. Since the day of the treaty signing there had been a tall pallet, a large shiny metallic box, taking up space in the middle of the auditorium's stage. The original plan was that after the voting, the High Council's first official decision would be to open it. Like small children wanting to open their presents, they couldn't wait any longer so they unanimously decided to forgo more waiting and pop it open. The Asurans opened the box somehow, no one could figure out how, since there had been no obvious seams or handles. They then gave each signatory country a small decorated metallic box containing three differently colored data storage crystals, each had a reader device with various communication interfaces for use with man-made computer electronics. Each of the boxes had an engraved label of the nation it was to be given to. The scientists and those of the others that understood what a 'byte' was, were amazed when they were told that each of these tiny thumb sized crystals held a Terabyte of data and had empty room for another Terabyte. Compared to 90's man-made storage technology, those figures were astronomical. The box for the Chinese was sent to Beijing by diplomatic courier.

The Asuran Ambassador announced that after the Grand Assembly had completed its organization and had voted-in its council, they had 'a couple of matters' to bring to it. He also advised that the presence of 'their experts' would be advisable, so they may clarify any questions and advise the Assembly if so asked. He did not have to clarify who those experts were.

That announcement did raise many eyebrows and questions were voiced but the Asuran kept quiet on further information.

The Asurans had already started construction of a new control room and new gate room inside Cheyenne mountain where they would be placing the control equipment and their 'upgraded' Stargate. The scientists there, including Sam, were all excited to see what the new gate would be like. The old gate was to be artificially 'buried' and kept in storage. It was announced the construction would be complete within hours.

At the end of the assembly's session, everyone went for a tour of the first Galactic Science Exhibit where prototypes of Earth-made devices, reverse engineered from alien tech, were on display. The first big display was of a prototype anti-gravity propulsion system. Initially most of the effort for that technology was by Samantha Carter, with later additional help from other Earth scientists, who significantly started helping after they begun reverse engineering Osiris' Archaic Tel'tak and could actually see how it worked. The second big display was of a prototype shield generator Samantha Carter and her team had designed and built all on their own. The third display had a prototype human designed plasma rifle, reverse engineered from a Jaffa staff weapon they had found. Those 'big' displays and many other smaller ones took their breath away.

SGSGSGSGSG

Two Hours Later.

Cheyenne Mountain Complex.

Two dozen Carters had been swarming the 27th level of Cheyenne mountain where the new control room and the new gate room were being constructed or more accurately, materialized. With a final re-check, they were satisfied their labor was complete and they 'opened' the area for visitors. They specifically requested Jack O'Neill to be present and then beamed out without much fuss.

The reason for Jack being there became apparent to Jack and Sam when they reached the doorway to the control room, they too had been itching to take their first look at what the Asurans had brewed.

An Ancient control chair prominently stood in the middle of the room.

The new control room had that smell of 'brand new' about it. The control room's walls and ceiling were shaped as a dome and were smooth and polished as was the floor. The front side wall of the room was transparent with an outlook to the gate room.

There were half a dozen control stations strewn about, but it was obvious the main control was the chair. Obvious to Sam and Jack that is, since most of the other scientists did not know about the meaning of the chair and ignored it entirely.

They complained that nothing was 'working'. And that complaining quickly grew, scientists love to whine after all. Before it got too out of hand, Jack spoke up.

"Quiet!" He looked around the room. "It's not working 'cause no one has turned it on, yet." He said with a grin.

He indicated for everyone else to stand back.

He walked to the chair but, before sitting he had a thought. He went to where a ZPM would normally be and waved his hand over it. The device activated and raised something upwards. He picked up what should have been a ZPM, looked at it, he looked back to Carter. "Huh, this is new." He said.

It was shaped similar to a ZPM but instead of the yellowish glow a charged ZPM would have this one was glowing green and it had less crystalline parts on its surface.

"New model?" Carter asked.

"That would be awesome!" O'Neill answered.

The others looking on started producing a buzz of chatter.

Jack shrugged and reinserted the power source. "Shall we?" He said before sitting.

He sat on the chair, it quickly lit up and reclined.

The room lit up.

Jack was mentally looking through the available systems. "Well this is interesting." He said.

The room's walls and floor disappeared, to be replaced by a sea of stars. Everyone gasped at that.

Jack had the hologram zoom to a grand view of the milky way galaxy, putting it in the center of the dome above his head.

It had thousands of information tags attached to star-systems.

"Cool!" Jack said.

He zoomed in to a single star, Sol. The people present thought they began to feel heat radiating from the large sphere of the star taking up the center of the dome. He moved to focus on Earth and kept that view for a few seconds. Something was obviously different, the continents where out of place, it was as if... of course! The view was old, of Earth thousands of years ago. He ignored the buzzing chatter everyone else was making as he zoomed out and moved the view on to another area of the galaxy and zoomed in to another star system.

"This has Stargate addresses built in!" Jack said.

Sam was amazed at what that could potentially mean. If it had addresses no one else knew about...

"Does it have Proclarush Taonas?" Sam asked.

Jack moved the view with a thought, it focused on a star system. Then it focused further to a single planet. It had some limited but clearly visible volcanic activity spread out through some of its surface.

"Yeah..."

"You know what this means?" The address for Proclarush Taonas was not written on the Abydos Cartouche. It was one of the addresses most Goa'uld would not know about. It would mean there are other addresses in the computer, to planets the Goa'uld had never been on!

"Yeah..."

"This is amazing!" She cheered like a child.

"According to this, there is still an active Stargate there. And..." Jack stayed quiet for another few moments. Sifting through the information.

"Sam?"

"Yes?"

"Sam, why do we send MALPs through the gate?" Jack asked.

Sam frowned, "To do initial recon on the other side of course..."

"Yeah, but, why send MALPs?" He asked grinning.

"How else are we..." she paused, "No..."

"Yes."

_-+o+-_

A/N: Yes it was ~5 Billion (5.3bn) people... in 1991!

We never do learn the name of the people on P3X-289 (Episode 705, Revisions). So I made one up.

The Touched are from episode 105, 'The Broca Divide'. Think 'Land of Light', 'Land of Dark', Neanderthal producing virus... yeah that one.

Thanks to my Beta readers.

Please review to feed my muse. (And please make sure to log in first, if you expect an answer to a question...)

Posted on 2012-10-07