Alternative Destiny series
Aug. 6th, 2010 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoTitle: Once More From the Top
Series: Alternative Destiny (Prologue)
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Time Travel / AU
Rating: PG
Summary: In an AU where the Ancients weren't quite so neglectful, where time travel isn't a cheap deux ex machina, SG-1 still manages to hatch an insane plan to use Ancient technology and mess with the timeline anyway.
Once More From the Top
Ida Galaxy, 2015 CE, Alpha Timeline
Colonel Arthur Lee watched the small Ancient shuttle pulled away from the Terran Space Vehicle Independence Day on the main viewscreen of said starship.
"This is Alternity to the Independence," came the curt voice of Colonel Samantha Carter over the communications channel. "We are in position. You'll want to fall back to prevent any effects from the space-time distortion field that we will generate."
"Understood, Alternity," Lee replied, nodding at his navigator.
Personally, he was still wondering at the secrecy surrounding this mission that he'd been ordered to participate in, especially since it involved some of the most highly placed US military officers in the Terran Space Command. But then again, the fact alone that he hadn't been given more than the coordinates to take his ship to, told him that it was probably something classified beyond his pay grade. What was interesting was that Colonel Cameron Mitchell had come along on the trip also, even though the man was supposed to take over the TSV George Hammond in case -- in case what? If the team out there didn't come back? That smacked of some pretty big risks that some of the most important personnel in the program shouldn't be involved in. Somehow, the feeling of unease still wouldn't leave him.
"We're in position, sir," announced the navigator, breaking into the Colonel's ruminations.
Lee opened the comm channel once more. "Alternity, we're ready when you are."
On the view screen, the crew of the Independence Day watched in fascination as the Ancient timeship - the alternate timeline travel ship, technically, Lee had to remind himself - seem to twist in the fabric of space time, and then disappeared from view.
"Sir, we have confirmed that the Alternity has completely departed into the space-time corridor," reported the officer at the sensor station.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," said Lee, then turned to Mitchell where he had stood by silently all this time.
"Now what?"
Ida Galaxy, c. 3000 BCE, Beta Timeline
"Someone remind me again why this was a good idea?" Jack O'Neill muttered as the small timeship newly renamed Alternity finally lurched into normal space from its trip down the space-time corridor.
Dr. Daniel Jackson loosened his death grip on the handles of his chair and gave Jack an exasperated look. "Uh, maybe because you came up with it in the first place?" he answered the rhetorical question with usual sarcastic aplomb.
"Well how was I to know you two would take my joke seriously?" Jack shot back. "I thought you people were supposed to shoot down stupid ideas like this."
"Jack."
"Daniel."
"Sir," Samantha Carter finally broke into the banter before it could escalate further as it usually did. "According to sensors, we've reached the right time and place." As the two men turned to check their panels, she couldn't help but further add, "and Sir, about the dumb ideas, isn't that the usual state of affairs when it comes to our relations with the Asgard?"
"Smartass." Jack gave her a fond grin.
Daniel grinned as well. "So are we going to fly this thing to Othala?" he asked.
"Nah." Jack dug through his pockets and came up with a familiar white object. "I'd thought I'd give Thor a direct call instead."
"An Asgard communications stone!" Sam exclaimed in surprise. "I thought the one Earth had was locked away in Area 51 after the last strike by the Replicators."
"Yeah." Jack looked momentarily sad at the reminder. "This one's a personal one Thor gave me." Quirking a devil-may-care grin, he activated the device. "Rank has its privileges."
"I doubt rank had anything do with it," Daniel needled his friend. "Actually, I'm more curious why you had it with you when we evacuated Ida, considering we only made away with our immediate personal effects."
Jack huffed and shrugged. Fortunately, he was saved from having to admit to sentiment by the sudden arrival of an Asgard ship in front of them. The holographic screen in front of him suddenly popped up with an incoming transmission.
"Alteran ship; this is Commander Thor of the Asgard Fleet. Are you in need of assistance?" The voice was familiar, but the language was Ancient.
"I guess we should've remembered they wouldn't know English at this point," Sam voiced the sentiment that was shared by her companions. Of the three of them, she was the most rusty at the spoken Ancient tongue.
Recovering from his surprise, Jack waved away Daniel's attempt at answering the communications call and toggled the return channel himself. After two trips through the Ancient Repository of Knowledge, he was proficient in the language despite himself.
"Hi Thor! No Alterans here; just their long lost descendants. We have some stuff for you. Mind if we visit?"
In the awkward silence that followed, the humans could well imagine Thor's slow blink of bewilderment. Daniel would have proceeded to bang his head against the console when the world around them went white. When the light faded, they found themselves on the bridge of the Asgard ship. Thor was sitting on his usual black throne before them.
"Howdy!" Jack broke the strained silence, as always in his own inimitable way. "My name's Jack O'Neill. My friends here are Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter."
Thor cocked its head as if examining a strange science specimen. "You are of the species created by the Alterans on Terra."
The three humans looked at each other.
"Uh, yeah," Daniel finally responded, even though there wasn't a question in the statement.
"Our information indicate your race was until recently under the subjugation of the Goa'uld and do not possess the level of technology to reach this Galaxy."
"Ah, we don't. Uh, here in this current time," Daniel admitted.
"But we actually came here in a timeship, from about five thousand years in the future," Jack put in helpfully.
There was another short silence while Thor processed the information given. "You are attempting to introduce changes to the timeline?" it finally asked at length. Truthfully, that didn't sound like a good idea, given the possibility of paradox that the concept invoked. In fact, Thor recalled that the Ancients had been uncharacteristically vocal about avoiding direct time travel research in the past.
"Not quite," Daniel corrected quickly. A quick look at Sam's pained expression showed that she already had problems following the conversation, much less give her scientific explanation. So he tried to explain in her stead as well as he could. "From the information we found about the timeship, it cannot change the past of the timeline traveled from. Instead it just creates a new alternate timeline from the point of arrival, where the changes will be introduced to." That had been why the Lanteans had never tried to use it to prevent the Wraith War from happening.
It was a testament to the familiarity of these particular humans with the Asgard race that they could recognize the signs of growing confusion on Thor's bland features.
"What is the purpose for your presence in the past of an alternate timeline to your own?" Thor finally asked.
"Well, like I said before, we have something for you." Jack said with a happy grin. This was the best part. "There's a couple of databases we brought with us on the ship. If you plug them in, you'll see why we're here."
Thor considered these strange descendants of the Alteran race. They appeared sincere, and the Alterans were once the allies of the Asgard after all. Decision made, the diminutive commander hopped off its seat and approached a nearby console. A quick command had the timeship beamed into a large enough bay to contain it, and all loose items on the ship were beamed directly into a nearby examination room, ready to be inspected.
The preliminary report came back quickly, with the uncharacteristic excitement from the scientist assigned to examine the databases. While the three humans weren't fluent enough in Asgard to understand what was being said, they exchanged excited grins themselves at the exuberant tone of the babble over the comm channel.
"You have the Legacy of the Asgard Race," the disquiet that Thor felt over that surprise was eclipsed by the other discovery, "and the solution to the degradation caused by our cloning methodology."
"Yep." Jack was practically bouncing on his heels.
"One of our regrets in the original timeline we come from was that a solution to your cloning problems wasn't found before the Asgard race died out," Daniel elaborated. "And in our past experiences with alternate realities, the ones we've seen haven't been that promising either. So once we had this information, we thought it would be nice to have at least one alternate reality out there where we know you guys will still be around."
These descendants of the Alterans were more unlike their ancestor species the more he spoke to them, Thor decided. "You created an alternate timeline for the express purposes of saving our race, and give us the accumulated information of five thousand years of advancement? What do you ask for in return?"
"Woah there!" Jack protested immediately, waving his hands for emphasis. "This isn't a trade or blackmail or anything. We wouldn't be the 'Fifth Race' back home if it weren't for the Asgard. This is just the right thing to do for our allies." He paused to make a face at Daniel's look of exasperation and Thor's own more subtle look of disbelief. "Although... Okay, it'd be nice to get something more substantial than a 'thank you'."
"The Asgard people owe you great thanks for a debt that can never be repaid," Thor promptly deadpanned.
Jack grinned back at the moment of levity and made a shooing motion at Daniel, who cleared his throat and spoke up. "Well, we don't actually want to make any drastic changes to, uh, most of our planet's history... what with the, uh, whole natural development of the species thing. But there was a favor or two we were hoping to ask of the Asgard."
"What is it you wish from us?" Thor asked.
"Uh, you'll probably find this information in our copy of the Asgard Legacy, but in about four thousand years from now, the Asgard will broker the Protected Planets Treaty with the Goa'uld to, well, protect some of the planets in the, ah, Avalon Galaxy. There were originally 26 planets protected by that treaty..."
"We'd like to add a couple to the list," Jack interrupted bluntly, impatient with Daniel's history lecture. "Terra, Langara, and Abydos."
"In our timeline, both Langara and Abydos were friends of our world who were invaded or destroyed by the Goa'uld," Daniel added.
Thor nodded, understanding the reasons behind the request. "The Asgard High Council will need to review the conditions of these planets before such a treaty would be signed, but your request is not unreasonable."
"Great! Then there's item two on the list." Jack clapped his hands in anticipation. "We'd like some help in dialing a nine-chevron address for the Alteran ship Destiny."
Notes:
1. Some changes have been made to the ship designations and Earth command structures, more to indicate that the original timeline is also an AU of the canon SG-1 universe. It is also post-Disclosure.
2. I'm not taking the Stargate RPG as canon. In these timelines, Thor was already a commander 5000 years ago, though possibly not yet Supreme Commander.
3. Italicized speech indicate the Ancient language.
Series: Alternative Destiny (Prologue)
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Time Travel / AU
Rating: PG
Summary: In an AU where the Ancients weren't quite so neglectful, where time travel isn't a cheap deux ex machina, SG-1 still manages to hatch an insane plan to use Ancient technology and mess with the timeline anyway.
Ida Galaxy, 2015 CE, Alpha Timeline
Colonel Arthur Lee watched the small Ancient shuttle pulled away from the Terran Space Vehicle Independence Day on the main viewscreen of said starship.
"This is Alternity to the Independence," came the curt voice of Colonel Samantha Carter over the communications channel. "We are in position. You'll want to fall back to prevent any effects from the space-time distortion field that we will generate."
"Understood, Alternity," Lee replied, nodding at his navigator.
Personally, he was still wondering at the secrecy surrounding this mission that he'd been ordered to participate in, especially since it involved some of the most highly placed US military officers in the Terran Space Command. But then again, the fact alone that he hadn't been given more than the coordinates to take his ship to, told him that it was probably something classified beyond his pay grade. What was interesting was that Colonel Cameron Mitchell had come along on the trip also, even though the man was supposed to take over the TSV George Hammond in case -- in case what? If the team out there didn't come back? That smacked of some pretty big risks that some of the most important personnel in the program shouldn't be involved in. Somehow, the feeling of unease still wouldn't leave him.
"We're in position, sir," announced the navigator, breaking into the Colonel's ruminations.
Lee opened the comm channel once more. "Alternity, we're ready when you are."
On the view screen, the crew of the Independence Day watched in fascination as the Ancient timeship - the alternate timeline travel ship, technically, Lee had to remind himself - seem to twist in the fabric of space time, and then disappeared from view.
"Sir, we have confirmed that the Alternity has completely departed into the space-time corridor," reported the officer at the sensor station.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," said Lee, then turned to Mitchell where he had stood by silently all this time.
"Now what?"
Ida Galaxy, c. 3000 BCE, Beta Timeline
"Someone remind me again why this was a good idea?" Jack O'Neill muttered as the small timeship newly renamed Alternity finally lurched into normal space from its trip down the space-time corridor.
Dr. Daniel Jackson loosened his death grip on the handles of his chair and gave Jack an exasperated look. "Uh, maybe because you came up with it in the first place?" he answered the rhetorical question with usual sarcastic aplomb.
"Well how was I to know you two would take my joke seriously?" Jack shot back. "I thought you people were supposed to shoot down stupid ideas like this."
"Jack."
"Daniel."
"Sir," Samantha Carter finally broke into the banter before it could escalate further as it usually did. "According to sensors, we've reached the right time and place." As the two men turned to check their panels, she couldn't help but further add, "and Sir, about the dumb ideas, isn't that the usual state of affairs when it comes to our relations with the Asgard?"
"Smartass." Jack gave her a fond grin.
Daniel grinned as well. "So are we going to fly this thing to Othala?" he asked.
"Nah." Jack dug through his pockets and came up with a familiar white object. "I'd thought I'd give Thor a direct call instead."
"An Asgard communications stone!" Sam exclaimed in surprise. "I thought the one Earth had was locked away in Area 51 after the last strike by the Replicators."
"Yeah." Jack looked momentarily sad at the reminder. "This one's a personal one Thor gave me." Quirking a devil-may-care grin, he activated the device. "Rank has its privileges."
"I doubt rank had anything do with it," Daniel needled his friend. "Actually, I'm more curious why you had it with you when we evacuated Ida, considering we only made away with our immediate personal effects."
Jack huffed and shrugged. Fortunately, he was saved from having to admit to sentiment by the sudden arrival of an Asgard ship in front of them. The holographic screen in front of him suddenly popped up with an incoming transmission.
"Alteran ship; this is Commander Thor of the Asgard Fleet. Are you in need of assistance?" The voice was familiar, but the language was Ancient.
"I guess we should've remembered they wouldn't know English at this point," Sam voiced the sentiment that was shared by her companions. Of the three of them, she was the most rusty at the spoken Ancient tongue.
Recovering from his surprise, Jack waved away Daniel's attempt at answering the communications call and toggled the return channel himself. After two trips through the Ancient Repository of Knowledge, he was proficient in the language despite himself.
"Hi Thor! No Alterans here; just their long lost descendants. We have some stuff for you. Mind if we visit?"
In the awkward silence that followed, the humans could well imagine Thor's slow blink of bewilderment. Daniel would have proceeded to bang his head against the console when the world around them went white. When the light faded, they found themselves on the bridge of the Asgard ship. Thor was sitting on his usual black throne before them.
"Howdy!" Jack broke the strained silence, as always in his own inimitable way. "My name's Jack O'Neill. My friends here are Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter."
Thor cocked its head as if examining a strange science specimen. "You are of the species created by the Alterans on Terra."
The three humans looked at each other.
"Uh, yeah," Daniel finally responded, even though there wasn't a question in the statement.
"Our information indicate your race was until recently under the subjugation of the Goa'uld and do not possess the level of technology to reach this Galaxy."
"Ah, we don't. Uh, here in this current time," Daniel admitted.
"But we actually came here in a timeship, from about five thousand years in the future," Jack put in helpfully.
There was another short silence while Thor processed the information given. "You are attempting to introduce changes to the timeline?" it finally asked at length. Truthfully, that didn't sound like a good idea, given the possibility of paradox that the concept invoked. In fact, Thor recalled that the Ancients had been uncharacteristically vocal about avoiding direct time travel research in the past.
"Not quite," Daniel corrected quickly. A quick look at Sam's pained expression showed that she already had problems following the conversation, much less give her scientific explanation. So he tried to explain in her stead as well as he could. "From the information we found about the timeship, it cannot change the past of the timeline traveled from. Instead it just creates a new alternate timeline from the point of arrival, where the changes will be introduced to." That had been why the Lanteans had never tried to use it to prevent the Wraith War from happening.
It was a testament to the familiarity of these particular humans with the Asgard race that they could recognize the signs of growing confusion on Thor's bland features.
"What is the purpose for your presence in the past of an alternate timeline to your own?" Thor finally asked.
"Well, like I said before, we have something for you." Jack said with a happy grin. This was the best part. "There's a couple of databases we brought with us on the ship. If you plug them in, you'll see why we're here."
Thor considered these strange descendants of the Alteran race. They appeared sincere, and the Alterans were once the allies of the Asgard after all. Decision made, the diminutive commander hopped off its seat and approached a nearby console. A quick command had the timeship beamed into a large enough bay to contain it, and all loose items on the ship were beamed directly into a nearby examination room, ready to be inspected.
The preliminary report came back quickly, with the uncharacteristic excitement from the scientist assigned to examine the databases. While the three humans weren't fluent enough in Asgard to understand what was being said, they exchanged excited grins themselves at the exuberant tone of the babble over the comm channel.
"You have the Legacy of the Asgard Race," the disquiet that Thor felt over that surprise was eclipsed by the other discovery, "and the solution to the degradation caused by our cloning methodology."
"Yep." Jack was practically bouncing on his heels.
"One of our regrets in the original timeline we come from was that a solution to your cloning problems wasn't found before the Asgard race died out," Daniel elaborated. "And in our past experiences with alternate realities, the ones we've seen haven't been that promising either. So once we had this information, we thought it would be nice to have at least one alternate reality out there where we know you guys will still be around."
These descendants of the Alterans were more unlike their ancestor species the more he spoke to them, Thor decided. "You created an alternate timeline for the express purposes of saving our race, and give us the accumulated information of five thousand years of advancement? What do you ask for in return?"
"Woah there!" Jack protested immediately, waving his hands for emphasis. "This isn't a trade or blackmail or anything. We wouldn't be the 'Fifth Race' back home if it weren't for the Asgard. This is just the right thing to do for our allies." He paused to make a face at Daniel's look of exasperation and Thor's own more subtle look of disbelief. "Although... Okay, it'd be nice to get something more substantial than a 'thank you'."
"The Asgard people owe you great thanks for a debt that can never be repaid," Thor promptly deadpanned.
Jack grinned back at the moment of levity and made a shooing motion at Daniel, who cleared his throat and spoke up. "Well, we don't actually want to make any drastic changes to, uh, most of our planet's history... what with the, uh, whole natural development of the species thing. But there was a favor or two we were hoping to ask of the Asgard."
"What is it you wish from us?" Thor asked.
"Uh, you'll probably find this information in our copy of the Asgard Legacy, but in about four thousand years from now, the Asgard will broker the Protected Planets Treaty with the Goa'uld to, well, protect some of the planets in the, ah, Avalon Galaxy. There were originally 26 planets protected by that treaty..."
"We'd like to add a couple to the list," Jack interrupted bluntly, impatient with Daniel's history lecture. "Terra, Langara, and Abydos."
"In our timeline, both Langara and Abydos were friends of our world who were invaded or destroyed by the Goa'uld," Daniel added.
Thor nodded, understanding the reasons behind the request. "The Asgard High Council will need to review the conditions of these planets before such a treaty would be signed, but your request is not unreasonable."
"Great! Then there's item two on the list." Jack clapped his hands in anticipation. "We'd like some help in dialing a nine-chevron address for the Alteran ship Destiny."
Notes:
1. Some changes have been made to the ship designations and Earth command structures, more to indicate that the original timeline is also an AU of the canon SG-1 universe. It is also post-Disclosure.
2. I'm not taking the Stargate RPG as canon. In these timelines, Thor was already a commander 5000 years ago, though possibly not yet Supreme Commander.
3. Italicized speech indicate the Ancient language.
