October 23rd, 2015

Atlantis, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean

Laboratory 37

Interesting, that had been what Woolsey had been told. Something 'interesting' had been found while searching some database that hadn't yet been cracked open, and it seemed to demand his attention. He was mildly surprised, due to the fact that there wasn't a hint of panic in the message he had received and nothing had blown up. Yet. Usually by now a section or all of Atlantis was locked down because of something being released into the air, or someone needed immediate medical attention or some other problem which required his attention.

The fact that he had reached the lab without a single alarm going off was enough to garner his curiosity.

Entering the lab, he was surprised at how empty it was of Earth made equipment. While most labs had half dozen computers, this one only had a single laptop hooked up to the local database. What it was missing in Earth tech, it more than made up in books though. Hundreds of them, old, new and somewhere in between, stacked in piles that reached well above the hip. The only thing greeting him other than the piles of book where three people who were digging through the database.

"Doctor Jackson, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Daniel looked up from the laptop at the question.

"Oh, Richard, hey. Didn't hear you come in."

"Yes well I tend to be quieter when I get a call from you and the city isn't in danger." Woolsey stated. "So what did you find that made you think making me come half way across the city before I was done my morning coffee?"

"Oh, yes." Daniel walked away from the laptop and towards one of the far off piles of books. The two assistances didn't say a word, both fearful in Woolsey's presence. Daniel picked up a book around the middle of a pile, half way between his knee and the ground. Opening it, he turned around towards Woolsey. "One of the texts from P8X-737 we traded for referenced ancient benevolent gods who took human form. Now no guesses as to who they are since the world wasn't a protected planet which pretty much limits the possibilities to the ancients. The texts also referenced a-a city of crystal overlooking the old capital from its center lake. Now at first the gods amongst men were said to be pleased with their people, helping them with the harvest and healing the sick, but eventually conflict, division and eventually war came to the capital and the gods ascended with their city and the chosen few from the capital below. Now the capital seemed to have once housed a few million, but when we visited it a few years ago there couldn't be more than a few thousand…"

"Doctor, is there a point because I have other work to do." Woolsey interrupted.

"Yeah, sorry. Anyway I cross-referenced the name they called the ancient crystal city with the latest database McKay managed to unlock here and I found this." He moved to the laptop and spent a few moments typing. The screen behind him changed from random ancient letters to seven symbols.

"Daniel, is that…" Woolsey started before being cut off.

"Yes, it's a gate address to another ancient city-ship."

"And where exactly does this address lead?" Woolsey inquired.

"The Triangulum galaxy."

Stargate: Triangulum

Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain

Gate room

November 14th, 2015

As he walked before the gate, Doctor Schmitt felt nervous. Usually when he spoke in front of a group it had usually been to students or his fellow scientists, but now he had a group that was predominantly neither, or at least not the scientists of his field.

"You are all the best of the best." The doctor started. "You stand here today because you are the pinnacle of what it means to be human, the shining examples of vat it means to be in your field. After two decades of exploration we have discovered technology, history, cultures and the like that we have only begun to scratch the surface of. Today, we continue this legacy by going out into the unknown once more."

He paused to let his words sink in while also catching his breath.

"We do not know what we will find on the other side. It could be a peaceful paradise that makes the Garden of Eden look like a slum; there could be a wasteland with nightmares which make the Wraith look like a pleasant memory. We do not know, and we are here to find out. I shall not lie though, the moment you walk through the gate is a point of no return. This mission will, for the foreseeable future, be alone in the night. With our fleet's responsibilities around the galaxy, along with the ongoing wars with the Wraith and the Cyrannus system we do not know when, or even if, reinforcements will ever come. We will be as much a colony to continue out people's survival as an outpost. If you do not wish to come with us, now is the time to leave. No one will think less of you for it. We could be disconnected not only for months or years, but in perpetuity."

There was a long silence, only broken by someone in the back of the group speaking up.

"Doc, I think everyone here already knows the odds and has accepted the risks."

Schmitt nodded with a slight grin.

"Alright, begin dialing sequence."

The gate room started to vibrate slightly as the gate started to activate. In the dialing room Director O'neill kept watch with Jackson by his side.

"You know if I just…"

"No Daniel."

"But Jack…."

"I said no when it was Atlantis, it stays no now."

"But we aren't dealing with the Ori anymore, and we can handle what we're fighting now without me needing to find something to make them go away."

Jack turned towards Daniel. "Daniel, this is a young man's game, and despite what I like to tell myself neither I nor you are the men we were when we walked through that gate to Abydos. You're needed in Atlantis to sift through the databases they've got there. That's the best place for a man with your abilities to be, not some far flung outpost in a galaxy we've not only never set foot in, but for all we know no human has."

Daniel sighed as the eighth chevron locked.

"So our days of adventuring are over is what you're saying."

"They've been over for a while. When was the last time you left the system?"

A moment after the whoosh from the gate subsided, the first MALP advanced, traveling through the wormhole to a distant galaxy. The image came up a few moments later, showing what appeared to be a gate room much like that of Atlantis. Unlike the one they had seen all those years ago, however, there was much more light which seemed to be coming from the large glass-like windows that where typical of a city-ship. With the atmospheric data coming back positive for habitability and everything looking clear, Jack gave a thumb up to the doctor on the ramp.

"Alright men, it's now or never." Major Lee, the man responsible for the company of soldiers going along with the expedition, stated. "Triangulum expedition, move out!"

With that Lee and the three members of what had been pre-emptively been made the first Triangulum stargate team, or SGT-1, moved through the gate, weapons at the ready. A few moments later they radioed in with 'clear'.

Without a word, Schmitt walked through the gate, followed by several others, then another MALP. Slowly but surely the company of soldiers, the hundreds of scientists and engineers, numbering just over a thousand in all, as well as a half dozen MALPs with as many crates of supplies and equipment as they could carry traveled to the distant galaxy.

By the time the last man passed across the event horizon, Jack was standing in front of the gate with a parting gift.

"We are all through, you may close the gate." Schmitt's voice said over the radio.

Ancient city of Toris

Triangulum Galaxy

A moment before the gate closed a bottle was rolled through. Walking up to collect it, Schmitt smiled as the large bottle had a tag wishing the expedition good luck. Unfortunately despite its size it wouldn't be enough to give everyone a fair amount, but the sentiment still remained.

"Alright everyone spread out and see what we can learn of our new home. I don't want you to activate more then we need to though. We want the lights to be on, not for a ten thousand year old experiment to go on a rampage." There were a few laughs but everyone was well aware of the risks involved with ancient technology. "And someone get a good look outside, I'd like to know just what type of world we've come to."

The expedition split up into predetermined groups. Around fifty stayed in the gate room to get the long dormant systems back online or to offload the MALPs. The rest broke up into groups of around a dozen, each with a mix of a couple of soldiers with the scientists and engineers. One group went up while the rest descended into the city below.

Lee, who had stayed in the gate room, walked out onto the balcony which overlooked the city beyond. The place was indeed identical to Atlantis, but there was something off about it. At first Lee wondered what the odd feeling was, but when he looked out beyond he realized what the feeling was. Humans seemed to have a sixth sense for bad omens.

"Lee to all teams, be on alert. This place has locals. I see a bridge connecting the city to the mainland, seems to be made of wood. There's a village off in the distance, can't make out much but there's light coming from it, probably fires."

"Uh, sir, this is team three. We're in the main jumper bay and there's nothing here. Like, at all. No jumpers, no control panels, no nothing. Just a big piece of glass above a big floor of flat nothing."

"Shit." Lee cursed to himself. The reason no jumpers had been brought was because it was assumed there would be a few on the other side. With the new information Lee prayed they wouldn't need to go on too many adventures threw the gate. Six MALPs went by fast at the SGC, and if they same logic for gate seeding was used in this galaxy as the Pegasus the rate would be even faster due to the odd tendency to plant them in orbit instead of on a planet.

As the hours ticked away more and more areas where brought back to life, the expedition found that for the most part everything they expected to find was there apart from the jumpers, but there were things they hadn't expected. On the path to the wooden bridge where tarps and signs with odd symbols, their message, if there was one, meaningless to the members of the expedition who could not understand them.

It was pre-dawn with the sun just over the horizon of mountains off to the west of the city. With the main arteries of travel in the city secured a squad of soldiers had been posted at the bridge, the rest of the expedition either setting up base in the main tower or doing a room by room search from the center going outward. A complete search was expected to take three or four days, or Earth days if the length was different on this world.

"Hey Serge, if all we got out there is a bunch of primitives living in huts why bother defending this bridge when we can blow it?" One of the infantry looking out towards the mainland asked.

"Because primitive or not they could be a potential ally. I don't know about you but if we start to run low on MREs I'd be more comfortable knowing we had a safe source of food." The staff sergeant replied. "Now get back to…"

The sergeant stopped as he instinctively took his weapon and pointed it towards open corridor they had originally come from. The other soldiers did the same, save two on the bridge who kept an eye out in case someone chose that moment to come from the mainland.

"Come out with your hands in the air." The staff sergeant ordered. There were a few moments of silence. "We know you're there, don't make this any harder than it needs to be."

After a long moment a pair of hands appeared from behind the open door, followed by another. The two pairs then moved into the opening, revealing a pair of teens, one a boy one a girl.

"D-don't hurt us, we were just playing around is all." The girl stuttered. "W-we know we aren't supposed to be here."

"Please, let her go." The boy spoke up. "I'm the one who convinced her to come here, it's my fault. If the ancestors want to punish anyone, it should be me."

The staff sergeant laughed when he realized what had happened, lowering his weapons. "Looks like we've got a couple of lovebirds who like to break the rules, boys."

The staff sergeant walked up to the two. "Kid, what's your name?"

"I am Damian, and this is Marits." The boy replied.

"Well Damian and Marits, I'm Staff Sergeant Simons. Don't worry about us; we aren't some divine retribution or anything." Simons explained. He took his radio. "Simons to Lee, we got two locals here at the bridge. Couple of teens breaking some no-entry rule the locals seem to have. What should I do with them?"

"Keep them there; I'm on my way with SGT-1."

"Understood."

There were a few moments of silence before Marits spoke. "So, uh, are we in trouble?"

"That depends."

"Depends on what?"

"Depends on how your parents feel when they find you going home with people from the Tau'ri."

"What's a Tau'ri?" Damian asked.

"It means 'first', it's who we are, the first humans. Humanity started on our world." Simons explained. He wasn't used to interacting with offworlders.

"I… see." Damian replied, not seeming to understand the concept. A few minutes went by of idle chitchat before Lee and SGT-1 arrived.

"Sergeant."

"Major."

"Situation report."

"Unchanged since my call."

"Alright. And these are?"

"This is Damian and Marits." Simons said, pointing to the two teenagers. "Damian, Marits, this is Major Lee."

"Hi." Marits said.

Lee took Simons aside to keep the two out of earshot. "What's this world look like with these two?"

"Well sir it seems to be ancient worshippers. Other than that I wouldn't hazard a guess."

"I see." Lee looked at the two teens. "You two, you live in the nearby village?"

"Uh sir mister." Marits answered.

"Alright, and if we were to, say, bring you two back there, how would you think your people would react?"

"Well father would probably be furious that Damian and I spent the night here in the Forbidden City."

"I was more talking about how they'd react to us." Lee clarified.

"Oh, well then they'd probably going to be happy that you aren't here to smite us. After all it is foretold that the ancestors would return."

"Alright, well we can't pose as deities due to regs, but it sounds better than being chased off the planet by people who think we're demons."

Toralan village

An hour later

The trek to the village had taken longer than expected. While the muddy road was no trouble for the four man SG team, but for the two civilians it was a different story. They kept getting stuck in the mud, causing the time it took to travel to nearly double.

"Marits, where have you been?" A man on the outskirts of the village asked, noticing the group approaching. "You're mother has been worried to no end. Any who are these strangers who bear such odd clothing?"

"Hey your poncho isn't exactly normal where we come from buddy." One of the SG team, Williams, stated.

"Father, these people came from the Forbidden City."

"You went into the Forbidden City?" Marits's father asked loudly. "Do you have any idea what the consequences could be? These people could be here to destroy the village or…"

"Oh no, no we aren't here to hurt anyone." Lee interrupted. "I'm Major Lee of the Triangulum expedition." Lee extended his hand, which the man only looked at in confusion.

"If you are not here to smite us, then are you here to deal with the blight?" The man asked.

"Oh great, there's something here." One of the team members moaned. "Here I thought this would be a peaceful mission."

Lee loudly cleared his throat to quiet his subordinate down. "And what, exactly, are the blight?"

"You know not of the blight?"

"Yeah yeah, every kid knows about them, how do you not know, we've heard it all before. Now what is the blight, and explain it like you would to a traveler who had never heard of them."

"Well" the man cleared his throat. "The blight are death incarnate, dark creatures which come from the gate of the gods whenever one enters the Forbidden City, dragging they and several others from ours and other villages each time to their hell beyond the gate."

"So they only come when someone enters the city." Lee repeated.

"And we've been activating the systems all around the city all night." One of the team continued. "Oh shit."

As Lee radioed in, the gate started to activate.