Alternative Destiny series
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tanithryudoTitle: The Circle Closes
Series: Alternative Destiny (Epilogue)
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 mess with the timeline anyway.
The Circle Closes
Ida Galaxy, 2015 CE, Beta Timeline
"Alright Thor," General Jack O'Neill parked himself in front of the diminutive Asgard commander, arms akimbo, "I've had enough of the run-around. It's not that I'm unhappy you got me out of the mountain of paperwork they try to bury me under, but just want is so important that you need me, Carter, and Daniel to come with you to Othala?"
Thor blinked at its long-time friend with an affected innocence that only the Asgard could be capable of. "O'Neill, the High Council felt that it would be appropriate for you to attend the occasion."
"What occasion?" Jack asked, for what felt like the umpteenth time.
"For history to come full circle," Thor answered simply as it stood from its command chair to approach the nearby console.
Jack growled in exasperation and threw his arms into the air. A bemused Daniel Jackson shook his head and made his own attempt to get some answers out of the Asgard military commander.
"Yeah, you've said that before," Daniel said as he stepped up beside Thor. "I don't suppose you could explain that cryptic--"
The bright light of the transporter interrupted his words.
"--statement." Daniel looked around and saw that everyone had been beamed down to a large cavernous facility that was filled with what appeared to be incubation chambers. "Ookay. This is new."
"Are these cloning chambers?" Colonel Samantha Carter asked, examining the nearest chamber which held a partially grown Asgard form.
"That is correct," Thor informed her. It began to walk further into the room, the three humans trailing behind.
"And this has to do with us..." Jack prompted when he caught up with his host.
"Holy Hannah!" The exclamation came from Sam as the group stopped in front of three chambers that quite obviously contained human clones. Familiar human clones.
Jack took a few steps further to stand in front of the chamber containing a face he'd once seen from behind a mirror, then whirled around to glare at Thor. "Thor! I know you mean well, but I told you that I don't want to be cloned into a younger body! What is the meaning of this?"
"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I didn't agree to be cloned either," Sam added with an indignant frown.
Thor idly wished that Asgard features could indulge in the human expression of sighing in exasperation. Instead, great patience was needed to provide further explanation. "General O'Neill, Colonel Carter, you misunderstand. These are not precisely clones of you."
"Well they sure look like it from here," Jack muttered.
Thor ignored the sarcasm with long practice. "They are the clones of the three individuals that entered this timeline five thousand years ago."
There was a short, shocked silence.
"WHAT?!"
"They are the clones of--"
"No, no, I heard you..." Jack waved the repeat explanation off and then ran a hand through his greying hair. He never felt comfortable when talking about his alternate self. They were two completely different people, but everyone tend to overlook that at times, including himself when he isn't paying attention. Damned neural downloads.
Sam and Daniel didn't look that comfortable about it either. "Are you saying that you've had them all this time?" Daniel finally asked.
Thor nodded. "At the time, with their advanced age, we determined that while our stasis technology could preserve their original DNA, it would not be able to keep them alive after five thousand years. Instead, we arranged to preserve their minds inside specialized memory cores, until now."
"Why now?" Daniel asked.
"We are nearing the time from which they began their expedition into the past," Thor explained. "It has taken us some time during these intervening years to develop the technology to induce a specific quantum signature onto matter. We are now confident that we can create these clones with the quantum signature of the timeline that they originally came from."
"So you're going to revive them and send them home," Sam realized.
"Not just them," Thor corrected.
The three humans stared at Thor blankly. The realization of what the short statement meant hit Sam first, and she whirled around to look at the rest of the facility and the myriad chambers there, before whirling back with a look of astonishment. "You're cloning yourselves to send with them? Your whole race? That's... but... where are you going to get the minds to put in them?"
"The minds of those who belong there," Thor answered simply. "We have not been entirely forthcoming on all the information that your alternate selves had provided us when they arrived in the past."
"Yeah, we got that," Jack muttered, just overcoming the shock of revelation himself. "Wasn't it something about trying not to micromanage the timeline?"
"The timeline had drastically changed from much of the recent history of the other timeline," Thor agreed, "but that is not what I am referring to. When the Asgard race of the other timeline died out, they left their entire Legacy to the people of Earth."
"Kind of like the Altera and their Repositories of Knowledge," Daniel noted.
"When they informed the O'Neill of that timeline of this, he attempted to dissuade them from mass suicide."
"Yeah, I can see where he's coming from," O'Neill mused. He might find the Asgard a pain to deal with sometimes, but he had to admit that the little grey buggers had seriously grown on him.
"Although he was was not successful at preventing their deaths, he was able to convince them to preserve their minds in a separate memory core. They entrusted this to him in the hope that if one day a solution could be found to their genetic problems, the Asgard race could be restored once more."
"Wait," Daniel held a hand up in confusion, "but once they found that solution, why didn't they just restore them in their timeline? Why the whole time travel thing?"
"The solution they discovered could only apply to source DNA that was still viable. The last few cycles of Asgard DNA in their timeline was too degraded to use."
"Oh."
There was another short silence. This one of contemplation.
"So," Jack said at length, "what are we here for again?"
"We felt it appropriate that you would be here to see them off, and perhaps you may wish to speak to your counterparts," Thor told them. "Unfortunately you will only have a short time before they must leave, as while these chambers are specially designed to counter the effects of entropic cascade failure, they will suffer from the effects once outside."
The feeling of unease that came whenever he thought about his alternate self came back again. "Peachy," Jack sighed. "So when is that going to be again?"
"Soon," was all Thor said before turning to depart the room. "Come, I will take you to a waiting room until they are ready."
Slowly, the three humans followed the Asgard commander, still throwing glances at the clones of their counterparts as they departed, and mentally bracing themselves for what was going to be one surreal conversation.
Ida Galaxy, 2015 CE, Alpha Timeline
"Sir, we have confirmed that the Alternity has completely departed into the space-time corridor," reported the officer at the sensor panels of TSV Independence.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," said Colonel Arthur Lee, then turned to his fellow Colonel on the bridge. "Now what?"
Colonel Cameron Mitchell huffed and folded his arms. "We wait," he said shortly.
"Wait for what? For how long?" Lee asked exasperatedly. It galled him that his newly commissioned ship had been shanghaied for this supposedly top secret mission and he wasn't even told what the mission really entailed other than the fact that they were going to be using some kind of time traveling method that the Ancients themselves had determined not to work. "What kind of insane plan is this anyway?"
Mitchell shrugged and rolled his eyes. "We wait as long as it takes. And as for insane, well, that's just about typical for something cooked up by the former SG-1."
"Former?" Lee raised an eyebrow in askance as his fellow colonel, not missing the slight emphasis on the word. "Pissed they didn't take you along?"
"No," Mitchell protested quickly, too quickly. "But you didn't have to deal with trying to keep Vala away from this--"
"Sir!" The conversation between the two colonels was interrupted by the lieutenant at the sensor station. "I'm picking up multiple distortions in space-time around us! There are ships emerging!"
Despite the adrenaline suddenly shooting through him, Lee kept his voice cool and calm. "Shields up. Power weapons. Put them on the screen. Do we have identification?"
"Ship design and power signatures indicate... the Asgard, sir." The lieutenant's voice was disbelieving.
On the view screen, everyone could see the vessels that were blinking into existence.
"Yeah, those look like Asgard designs," Mitchell noted, "except bigger, and I bet they're even better."
"We're being hailed, sir," announced another crewman.
"Put it through."
The screen blinked and Colonel Lee had to admit that he wasn't as surprised as he should have been to see the familiar diminutive grey species that appeared.
"Greetings," hailed the Asgard commander, "I am Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet."
"Ah, greetings, Supreme Commander," Lee replied, giving a bewildered look at Mitchell before trying to pull himself together. "This is Colonel Lee of the Terran vessel Independence. You'll to excuse me sir, but, ah, we thought the Asgard were all...dead."
"You were correct," Thor agreed. "However, that is no longer the case, due to the actions of General O'Neill, Colonel Carter, and Dr. Jackson. If you will lower your shields, we will return them to your ship."
Lee only hesitated to give the order for a moment. With the sheer number of ships that were appearing, they didn't have any need to lie about things if their attentions had been malign. No sooner had the Independence had lowered her shields, than the white light of the transporter deposited three people onto the bridge.
"General! You look..." Mitchell was the first to speak up in the sudden surprised silence on the bridge, and he was immediately cut off by a glare from the man in question.
"...younger," Lee finished for him, and weathered the glare that was immediately transferred to him. "May I ask what happened?"
Jack O'Neill glared at the two men with narrowed eyes, knowing as he did so that there was no help from his two companions. "Thor tricked me," he finally grumped shortly.
"Sir?" Mitchell asked, taking courage from the way that Daniel was staring at the ceiling innocently and Sam was staring at the decks in an obvious struggle to keep from laughing.
Jack sighed; there was no getting around the insubordination that surrounded him now that he looked at least 20 years younger. He was just lucky the Asgard hadn't left him at 20 years old as he had heard Thor musing about. "I was tricked in to getting myself transferred into a cloned body," he clarified, then had to grudgingly admit, "Thor was one good poker player back in the day."
"Sounds like an interesting story," Mitchell quipped, before another glare sent his way persuaded him to stop that line of inquiry. "I mean, I'm sure the report on your mission would be an interesting read."
Jack snorted and turned toward Lee. "Go and and plot a course back, Colonel. The Asgard from the other timeline graciously gave their returning counterparts here some ships, but they'll still have to rebuild their infrastructure here in Ida. It'll be a while before they're back on the inter-galactic stage, but I want to spread the word once we get home." A gratified smirk now stole across Jack's face. "Our little grey allies are back."
"Yes, sir!" Lee began to grin as well.
The grins were echoed amongst everyone on the bridge of the Independence. After the difficulties of the last few years, things were finally looking up again.
Notes:
In this "original" timeline (an AU itself), O'Neill accompanied SG-1 on the last trip to the Asgard in the episode 'Unending'.
Series: Alternative Destiny (Epilogue)
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 mess with the timeline anyway.
Ida Galaxy, 2015 CE, Beta Timeline
"Alright Thor," General Jack O'Neill parked himself in front of the diminutive Asgard commander, arms akimbo, "I've had enough of the run-around. It's not that I'm unhappy you got me out of the mountain of paperwork they try to bury me under, but just want is so important that you need me, Carter, and Daniel to come with you to Othala?"
Thor blinked at its long-time friend with an affected innocence that only the Asgard could be capable of. "O'Neill, the High Council felt that it would be appropriate for you to attend the occasion."
"What occasion?" Jack asked, for what felt like the umpteenth time.
"For history to come full circle," Thor answered simply as it stood from its command chair to approach the nearby console.
Jack growled in exasperation and threw his arms into the air. A bemused Daniel Jackson shook his head and made his own attempt to get some answers out of the Asgard military commander.
"Yeah, you've said that before," Daniel said as he stepped up beside Thor. "I don't suppose you could explain that cryptic--"
The bright light of the transporter interrupted his words.
"--statement." Daniel looked around and saw that everyone had been beamed down to a large cavernous facility that was filled with what appeared to be incubation chambers. "Ookay. This is new."
"Are these cloning chambers?" Colonel Samantha Carter asked, examining the nearest chamber which held a partially grown Asgard form.
"That is correct," Thor informed her. It began to walk further into the room, the three humans trailing behind.
"And this has to do with us..." Jack prompted when he caught up with his host.
"Holy Hannah!" The exclamation came from Sam as the group stopped in front of three chambers that quite obviously contained human clones. Familiar human clones.
Jack took a few steps further to stand in front of the chamber containing a face he'd once seen from behind a mirror, then whirled around to glare at Thor. "Thor! I know you mean well, but I told you that I don't want to be cloned into a younger body! What is the meaning of this?"
"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I didn't agree to be cloned either," Sam added with an indignant frown.
Thor idly wished that Asgard features could indulge in the human expression of sighing in exasperation. Instead, great patience was needed to provide further explanation. "General O'Neill, Colonel Carter, you misunderstand. These are not precisely clones of you."
"Well they sure look like it from here," Jack muttered.
Thor ignored the sarcasm with long practice. "They are the clones of the three individuals that entered this timeline five thousand years ago."
There was a short, shocked silence.
"WHAT?!"
"They are the clones of--"
"No, no, I heard you..." Jack waved the repeat explanation off and then ran a hand through his greying hair. He never felt comfortable when talking about his alternate self. They were two completely different people, but everyone tend to overlook that at times, including himself when he isn't paying attention. Damned neural downloads.
Sam and Daniel didn't look that comfortable about it either. "Are you saying that you've had them all this time?" Daniel finally asked.
Thor nodded. "At the time, with their advanced age, we determined that while our stasis technology could preserve their original DNA, it would not be able to keep them alive after five thousand years. Instead, we arranged to preserve their minds inside specialized memory cores, until now."
"Why now?" Daniel asked.
"We are nearing the time from which they began their expedition into the past," Thor explained. "It has taken us some time during these intervening years to develop the technology to induce a specific quantum signature onto matter. We are now confident that we can create these clones with the quantum signature of the timeline that they originally came from."
"So you're going to revive them and send them home," Sam realized.
"Not just them," Thor corrected.
The three humans stared at Thor blankly. The realization of what the short statement meant hit Sam first, and she whirled around to look at the rest of the facility and the myriad chambers there, before whirling back with a look of astonishment. "You're cloning yourselves to send with them? Your whole race? That's... but... where are you going to get the minds to put in them?"
"The minds of those who belong there," Thor answered simply. "We have not been entirely forthcoming on all the information that your alternate selves had provided us when they arrived in the past."
"Yeah, we got that," Jack muttered, just overcoming the shock of revelation himself. "Wasn't it something about trying not to micromanage the timeline?"
"The timeline had drastically changed from much of the recent history of the other timeline," Thor agreed, "but that is not what I am referring to. When the Asgard race of the other timeline died out, they left their entire Legacy to the people of Earth."
"Kind of like the Altera and their Repositories of Knowledge," Daniel noted.
"When they informed the O'Neill of that timeline of this, he attempted to dissuade them from mass suicide."
"Yeah, I can see where he's coming from," O'Neill mused. He might find the Asgard a pain to deal with sometimes, but he had to admit that the little grey buggers had seriously grown on him.
"Although he was was not successful at preventing their deaths, he was able to convince them to preserve their minds in a separate memory core. They entrusted this to him in the hope that if one day a solution could be found to their genetic problems, the Asgard race could be restored once more."
"Wait," Daniel held a hand up in confusion, "but once they found that solution, why didn't they just restore them in their timeline? Why the whole time travel thing?"
"The solution they discovered could only apply to source DNA that was still viable. The last few cycles of Asgard DNA in their timeline was too degraded to use."
"Oh."
There was another short silence. This one of contemplation.
"So," Jack said at length, "what are we here for again?"
"We felt it appropriate that you would be here to see them off, and perhaps you may wish to speak to your counterparts," Thor told them. "Unfortunately you will only have a short time before they must leave, as while these chambers are specially designed to counter the effects of entropic cascade failure, they will suffer from the effects once outside."
The feeling of unease that came whenever he thought about his alternate self came back again. "Peachy," Jack sighed. "So when is that going to be again?"
"Soon," was all Thor said before turning to depart the room. "Come, I will take you to a waiting room until they are ready."
Slowly, the three humans followed the Asgard commander, still throwing glances at the clones of their counterparts as they departed, and mentally bracing themselves for what was going to be one surreal conversation.
Ida Galaxy, 2015 CE, Alpha Timeline
"Sir, we have confirmed that the Alternity has completely departed into the space-time corridor," reported the officer at the sensor panels of TSV Independence.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," said Colonel Arthur Lee, then turned to his fellow Colonel on the bridge. "Now what?"
Colonel Cameron Mitchell huffed and folded his arms. "We wait," he said shortly.
"Wait for what? For how long?" Lee asked exasperatedly. It galled him that his newly commissioned ship had been shanghaied for this supposedly top secret mission and he wasn't even told what the mission really entailed other than the fact that they were going to be using some kind of time traveling method that the Ancients themselves had determined not to work. "What kind of insane plan is this anyway?"
Mitchell shrugged and rolled his eyes. "We wait as long as it takes. And as for insane, well, that's just about typical for something cooked up by the former SG-1."
"Former?" Lee raised an eyebrow in askance as his fellow colonel, not missing the slight emphasis on the word. "Pissed they didn't take you along?"
"No," Mitchell protested quickly, too quickly. "But you didn't have to deal with trying to keep Vala away from this--"
"Sir!" The conversation between the two colonels was interrupted by the lieutenant at the sensor station. "I'm picking up multiple distortions in space-time around us! There are ships emerging!"
Despite the adrenaline suddenly shooting through him, Lee kept his voice cool and calm. "Shields up. Power weapons. Put them on the screen. Do we have identification?"
"Ship design and power signatures indicate... the Asgard, sir." The lieutenant's voice was disbelieving.
On the view screen, everyone could see the vessels that were blinking into existence.
"Yeah, those look like Asgard designs," Mitchell noted, "except bigger, and I bet they're even better."
"We're being hailed, sir," announced another crewman.
"Put it through."
The screen blinked and Colonel Lee had to admit that he wasn't as surprised as he should have been to see the familiar diminutive grey species that appeared.
"Greetings," hailed the Asgard commander, "I am Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet."
"Ah, greetings, Supreme Commander," Lee replied, giving a bewildered look at Mitchell before trying to pull himself together. "This is Colonel Lee of the Terran vessel Independence. You'll to excuse me sir, but, ah, we thought the Asgard were all...dead."
"You were correct," Thor agreed. "However, that is no longer the case, due to the actions of General O'Neill, Colonel Carter, and Dr. Jackson. If you will lower your shields, we will return them to your ship."
Lee only hesitated to give the order for a moment. With the sheer number of ships that were appearing, they didn't have any need to lie about things if their attentions had been malign. No sooner had the Independence had lowered her shields, than the white light of the transporter deposited three people onto the bridge.
"General! You look..." Mitchell was the first to speak up in the sudden surprised silence on the bridge, and he was immediately cut off by a glare from the man in question.
"...younger," Lee finished for him, and weathered the glare that was immediately transferred to him. "May I ask what happened?"
Jack O'Neill glared at the two men with narrowed eyes, knowing as he did so that there was no help from his two companions. "Thor tricked me," he finally grumped shortly.
"Sir?" Mitchell asked, taking courage from the way that Daniel was staring at the ceiling innocently and Sam was staring at the decks in an obvious struggle to keep from laughing.
Jack sighed; there was no getting around the insubordination that surrounded him now that he looked at least 20 years younger. He was just lucky the Asgard hadn't left him at 20 years old as he had heard Thor musing about. "I was tricked in to getting myself transferred into a cloned body," he clarified, then had to grudgingly admit, "Thor was one good poker player back in the day."
"Sounds like an interesting story," Mitchell quipped, before another glare sent his way persuaded him to stop that line of inquiry. "I mean, I'm sure the report on your mission would be an interesting read."
Jack snorted and turned toward Lee. "Go and and plot a course back, Colonel. The Asgard from the other timeline graciously gave their returning counterparts here some ships, but they'll still have to rebuild their infrastructure here in Ida. It'll be a while before they're back on the inter-galactic stage, but I want to spread the word once we get home." A gratified smirk now stole across Jack's face. "Our little grey allies are back."
"Yes, sir!" Lee began to grin as well.
The grins were echoed amongst everyone on the bridge of the Independence. After the difficulties of the last few years, things were finally looking up again.
Notes:
In this "original" timeline (an AU itself), O'Neill accompanied SG-1 on the last trip to the Asgard in the episode 'Unending'.
