[b][u]Chapter Seven[/b][/u]

[b]Euronda

March 30, 2157[/b]

A white beam of light hit the gate cave system, only to reappear a few kilometers away from a domed city. When it left again, gate and DHD stood in the open, the gate immediately beginning to dial.

As soon as it was possible, a several hundred meter long vehicle raced through, it's cylindrical form barely fitting through the gate itself. And yet, it did not collide with the gate.

The moment it had slowed down enough, doors opened at its side, spitting out men in power armor that flew right beside it.

In every inhabited region of the surface, holograms of the Asgard commander appeared, beginning to speak immediately, causing quite a ruckus .

[b]"I am Eirik of the Asgard. We are back, and we bring help. The new visitors are Ettin Slayers, men that proved their worth and convinced us of our fault. When we came last time, fury burned in our hearts.

As we come today, we see survivors; victims; people in need. The vehicle coming through contains atmospheric reprocessors, maintenance gear and a battalion of Ettin Slayers, ready to teach you, to train you, to trade with you.

For while our Fury is great... we aim to be just. The Asgard Union will be ready to greet your ambassadors and help you on your way towards a brighter future."[/b]

He disappeared, to be replaced by a man clad in what was obviously combat armor with a white cloak and a two-headed corpse as a symbol on his chest. His scarred face was visible behind an opened visor and his hands were placed on top of a heavy looking ornate double-axe, while a rifle was strapped to his back, as well as a pistol and grenades to his belt.

[i]"I am High Gothi Armuran of the Ettin Slayers. Be happy, for we convinced the Asgard that you do not need to suffer for the crimes you fell victim to. Penegal's virtues always included standing for yourself, so we will not insult you with pity and gifts. But thou shalt not suffer for a crime others committed, and so we stood in for you.

I have to say, it truly is great to argue with the gods when they answer. Although I had expected them to be more... impressive, physically speaking."[/i]

Armuran grinned for a short moment, then his gaze darkened.

[i]"It is time to heal the wounds this war forged. It is time to stand up, take your axe and spit destiny in the face.

You already did that, sent wave after wave of bombers, even as you died. Even as your world died around you, you fought the Ettin-kindred responsible."[/i]

With that, he raised his axe, allowing a hidden blade to come out his armor. [i]"Warriors, we salute you. Warriors, we welcome you. We will be proud to die by your side in battle, and together sing songs in Valhalla, as are our fallen with your pilots.

And, while we convinced the gods to help them, too, we also need you in healing the wounds your murderers caused after they fled through the ring. ETTIN SLAYERS!"[/i]

And comm traffic between the domes was rudely interrupted as the other Ettin Slayers answered the cry.

[b]Oannes Embassy
Sol gate facility, Luna
April 2nd 2157[/b]

When the Sol gate facility had been planned on Luna, the local government had added a dolphin colony to the plans, a structure that offered a full cubic kilometer of internal volume, and cost more than any other part of the facility without actually contributing much to the project.

By the time it had been noted by someone who had the authority to stop it, the project was too far along to change and most of the money had already been spent. However, when the investigators discovered that several senators of the Republic of Luna had stock in the company hired to build the huge structure, the senators in question soon found themselves in front of the The Hague courts being accused of abuse of authority, misuse of public funds and insider trading. Abusing the war effort for personal gain was extremely unpopular so if convicted they were expected to receive the maximum sentence.

In the beginning, no one had known what to do with the gigantic basin that was used only as the home of a few hundred uplifted dolphins, although there had been tentative steps to imprison hostless Goa'uld in there should the need ever arise.

This all had changed when the Oannes were contacted and asked for a place for an embassy – the big, artificial pseudoriver was nearly perfect. And so, the Oannes rented it and moved in, even if there were never more than a few hundred of them in the Sol system at the same time.

The buildings they had constructed inside the tunnel had an organic, richly decorated look that did not clash with the rough stone walls and the grav plates on the ground and inner walls hidden behind the transparent layer that formed the basin's walls and ground.

Built as a titanic underground tunnel, in a circle thirty two kilometers across, the tunnel was a hundred meters high, seventy of which were flooded, and one hundred meters wide. This shape allowed its inhabitants to swim for longer than its hundred kilometer length while being able to jump up to 30 meters into the air.

The Oannes had made good use of the place as they built their embassy into the basin while requesting to help in guarding possible Goa'uld prisoners and providing their millennia of experience with that race. A building close to the entry to the rest of the gate facility, behind a small garrison of guards and able to be cut off from the base by force fields if necessary, held the memory readers and rooms for diplomatic events, while several smaller ones buildings housed the Oannes. A laboratory where Oannes and Humans could work together and a grav vehicle garage completed the settlement.

At the inner wall, there was a construction site for both a tunnel leading to a planned inner basin that was to be separated from the outer basin by a thick wall, force fields to prevent Goa'uld intended to be held in there jumping over and a further guard house assigned to the warriors. These warriors had been the ones that offered to watch over captured Goa'uld in their embassy grounds, and construction of the inner basin would start once the tunnel had been drilled deep enough to begin working on the inner basin.

There had already been demands from the base's population to add a beach at some tunnel section that wasn't close to any underwater buildings, but the construction teams still had too many other things to care about to consider this right now.

Plants had been planted into the sandy ground sent here to better fit into Oannes aesthetics and house crustaceans, and the village teemed with life. Uplifted dolphins swam through the place, happy to be able to talk to people that understood them better than their 'parents' did, Humans were on their way to get support in the development of underwater habitats or briefings on the political situation in the galaxy. A shoal of fish rushed by a pack of uplifted dolphins that decided to hunt them for fresh food.

Above the water, a building on stilts, further supported by contragrav units and beams holding up a bridge leading from the tunnel next to the garrison into its entrance area, had been constructed by the Oannes.

It held a museum and conference rooms where Terrans had access to the data won by the Ancient Memory Project as well as technology that could not be installed in the underwater buildings.

In one of the conference rooms, Nem stood at a desk in a small stream of water that kept his naked feet wet while the air was further hydrated by humidifiers, and looked over the room.

It was full of importantpoliticians and military officers including the Secretary-General of the Terran Confederation, all twelve members of the Advisory Board, the Minister of War, Head of the Terran intelligence service ARGUS, and the Abydonian ambassador, a young man named Ska'ara who was calming down from the experience of walking across a bridge above so much water.

It was times likes this that Nem was happy he had not simply abducted one of the strange visitors coming from Terra. Even if he had planted false memories, there would have been a full combined arms unit worth of datafeeds to forge, inevitably resulting in him screwing up and earning the Oannes a punitive strike and a new enemy instead of a new ally – perhaps even two, he would need to address Ska'ara about renting some minor ocean. But he had been close…

Another Oanne sat a table a meter to his left, keeping his feet in the same stream. He was a member of their warrior caste and would be speaking later.

Nem pressed a button, causing a holographic representation of the galaxy with a tiny blue blinking cuboid next to the words "You are here" to appear and float in the air above him. Clearing his throat, he began to speak.

"Hello. I am Nem of the science caste, head of the Ancient Memory Project, and it is a pleasure to meet you. Today I will tell you what we know of the political situation in the galaxy. As most of you will have noticed, this" he said pointing to the hologram above him "is the local galaxy, known to you as the Milky Way. The blue region represents the area of space both you and the Ziru Sirka have settled." A golden, still tiny cuboid appeared, surrounding the blue, but much larger. "This is what the System Lords know as the Death Rectangle."

A new hologram appeared next to the Milky Way, which now showed a small, red dot blinking somewhere to the Rim of the Rectangle, showing a space station "It is governed from Bahlon Habitat, located just outside of the Rectangle. According to Ra's database, it held two Ha'tak class attack cruisers, colloquially called motherships, one of which you just destroyed after it was sent to pick him up."

As he spoke again, the galaxy lit up in a sea of red broken by several uncolored spheres, then faded into a mess of colors.
"The red area is the territory claimed by the System Lords... Yes?" he asked as a hand was raised.

"What are these holes? Is there territory the Goa'uld do not claim?" the senior Japanese advisory board member asked.

"Yes, there is." Twenty-seven of the holes suddenly lit up in silver, and Bahlon was replaced by Thor's Hammer, causing quite a few murmurs "These regions are protected by the Asgard, a race that also left its imprint on your world, although it isn't comparable to the Goa'uld's at all. They are centered on a planet, and extend outwards enough that a Goa'uld ship would require an hour from when it entered the area to reach the planet – allowing a vastly faster Asgard ship to attack while the Goa'uld are still in transit."

Another, slightly bigger sphere was filled with a coppery color, and a new sign replaced the Hammer. "Tollana. There is no treaty, just a few slow ships and extensive planetary fortifications keeping the System Lords out.

Then, there are worlds that are claimed as part of the Goa'uld Domain, but are de facto independent. Some of them even went completely off the grid. One of those is Hebridan. They beat the System Lords in a fleet engagement centuries ago, and no one has bothered with them ever since, especially as their world had no Stargate anyway. As you can see, there are quite a few worlds only nominally controlled by the Goa'uld." he said, letting them look at the map for a moment.

"But let's get back to the Rectangle. It is guarded by a vast sensor network and stations with Ha'tak quick reaction forces to keep its inhabitants boxed in. Still, we recorded the sensor network moving outwards over the millennia, and it is clear that the System Lords prefer moving the border to dealing with anything coming out. While their official line is that the Rectangle has been in his current borders forever, we watched the System Lords prefer evacuation of whole minor clusters to dealing with its inhabitants. They even opened a corridor to the core and evacuated it the moment it was clear where the jump bubbles would move along." he looked straight into his audience.

"We have always been at war with Eastasia." Someone mumbled, the other Terrans nodding their agreement.

After a moment's pause, Nem continued "This region of space, while formally part of Ra's domain, is devoid of any Goa'uld presence, with the sole exception of Ra's trip to Abydos every 250 years. This is caused by several phenomena, of which I will cover the first before handing over to my colleague."

The holographic galaxy zoomed in, now showing only the region close to Terra.

"This is a representation of Confederated space, taken from the sensors at our embassy after we were able to fine-tune several sensor ghosts. As you can see, this seems to represent ships in what you call jumpspace, which is the theory all the navigators and other Navy personnel I consulted with hold. To check this hypothesis, we used the sensors and Traffic Control to try and proof a connection between these bubbles and your ships' jump activity. This attempt was successful." a network of lines appeared, showing into a good representation of the Confederation's network of jump routes, causing the audience to murmur audibly. "Our sensors showed these networks to consist of slow subspace bubbles moving in straight lines.

"Seen from the Goa'uld point of view, which we checked from the ships you captured, these networks pose a major navigational hazard. While they can detect a certain, faint imprint onto subspace on well traveled routes, they are not able to detect a particular bubble in time to avoid collision if moving faster than 320c. Collisions with a bubble always prove fatal, most probably to both ships, possibly explaining quite a few misjumps."

"Anyway. I already mentioned the sensor stations watching the Rectangle. Ra's yacht had access to this information, and we found something very interesting."

The holographic galaxy zoomed out, now showing the whole rectangle. Then, a vast network of lines lit up, covering the rimward border of the Ziru Sirka. Another sprang up to trailing, a new, patchy, network corewards of the Empire, then another one rimward of that, and expanding well into the corridor towards the core while the last unknown network extended trailing of the one directly bordering to the Empire with quite a distance separating it from the other trailing one.

All those networks had in common was that they led deeper into the Rectangle, but were cut off where they went deeper into the Rectangle than the sensor stations were able to find those routes.

"As interesting as it is, this is only one of the phenomena encountered that keep the System Lords out of this region."

"Mr. Nem, are you able to determine if these drives are Vilani models?"

"I'm afraid not, your Excellency. These networks may be Vilani or they may be alien. There is no way to determine this. Also, you have to take into account that the Oannes do not have knowledge about the Rectangle that can not be found in either Goa'uld or your databases. For the remaining topics, Kunai is the better presenter, so I will hand over now."

"Thank you, Nem." The warrior rose "I am Kunai, Nelron of the warrior caste. My rank would roughly translate to 'Colonel' in your language." he introduced himself and sent a new holographic representation to the player, showing sensor readings of an inhabited planet with what looked like a society that was not yet industrialized. "You will soon see why the Rectangle is feared. What you are watching now happened roughly 10,000 years ago."

[b]Unnamed system

8,000 BC[/b]

Thirty Ha'tak left subspace and approached the planet, their shields reading as being at full capacity from a tactical display that had replaced the sensor readings. Suddenly, one of them exploded, followed by two others in rapid succession.

[b]Present day[/b]

The noise level rose sharply, only falling when Kunai spoke again.
"What you are seeing here are Ha'tak losses to a weapon which mostly ignores shields. Sensor data shows that these weapons not only ignore shields, but also most forms of matter entirely, as is easily proven by the weapon emplacements themselves being protected by several kilometers of rock. Results from suboptimal hits seem to be equivalent to low-megaton detonation, something the internal structure of a shielded vessel is most definitely not prepared to deal with. And this is without taking into account that most hits actually destroyed either the ship or the shield generators in a single shot."

While he spoke, the display showed the planetary installations continuing to fire, one even shooting straight through the planet it protected, their combined firepower destroying twenty-five Ha'tak before the remaining ships jumped out in a rout, unable to do any damage in return.

"Then, there is this."

Another planet appeared, another squadron of Ha'taks, and a small series of strange and small gates spaced 30° apart orbiting the world was highlighted."Regardless of what it looks like, these are not stargates, although I find the idea of a space gate intriguing to say the least. Instead..." the first gate opened without locking chevrons first, then spit out something small at frankly insane speeds. "It seems to be a gate-based equivalent to what you call a Gauss gun, accelerating large masses, in this case apparently a random boulder, to relativistic speeds." While he spoke, the improvised missile hit a Ha'tak, its shields holding for a fraction of a second before the ship was destroyed in a short-lived fireball, pushing a lot of debris into the other Goa'uld ships' shields. Meanwhile, the gate orbited away and another lined up, pointing itself at another Ha'tak.
Immediately after the second hit destroyed another ship, the Goa'uld fled.

No one in the room dared to say a word, so Kunai continued. "We counted one thousand three hundred and forty five vessels as well as tens of millions of Jaffa lost to these and other defenses before the old System Lords decided to stay away from the Rectangle, try to keep everything in and the younger ones out. There are also millennia old reports talking of gates being destroyed the moment they were activated, and as worlds without a gate are mostly uninteresting to the System Lords, they took this as a hint to stay away.

When you got to Abydos, only Ra and Sokar were left of those in the know, and now it is only Sokar, who probably has no problem to let his enemies run straight into these defenses. Also, the younger ones might want to fight the 'superstition' of their elders and come knocking. Destroying the vessel from Bahlon should have reinforced their beliefs of the deadly Rectangle, though."

Taking a sip from a glass, he allowed his audience a moment to take that in.

"To identify the regions most relevant to the current strategic situation, we investigated the yacht Ra was traveling with. We found out that he was scheduled to meet with the major system lords Sokar, Apophis, Heru'ur and Cronus this February." Kunai continued as the galaxy map reappeared, lighting up the territory of the mentioned Goa'uld and having their signs appear next to it while he spoke until most of the area close to Ra's domain – with the exception of a big region to core- and spinward - was lit up. "The Ha'tak was obviously ordered to pick him up so he could still arrive in time. By now, the upper echelons of the System Lords know that Ra is at the very least missing, and most probably assume he is dead."

"To allow you to get a better feel for the players, I will now introduce them." a stylized winged avian appeared next to the galaxy, which now highlighted his small holdings. "Heru'ur, son of Ra and Hathor. He has the best chance to take control over Ra's territory, probably getting most of it and is a very militaristic leader, feared even by the other System Lords. His preferred approach is brute force, so we may be confronted with him trying to solve the 'Rectangle Problem' with his fleet as well as reforms that could give the Jaffa warriors more power, especially if he should ever learn that you had imprisoned his mother, who is going to be an unknown factor."

"His main rival at the moment is Ra's brother Apophis." a coiled snake in a circle appeared. "Something over a century ago, Apophis and his Queen Amaunet apparently violated one of the System Lords' laws. We don't know what it was exactly, but it was obviously harsh, if not enough to strip them of their power. Instead, Heru'ur was tasked to punish them. They fought fiercely, but Heru'ur won, Amaunet died and Ra would not allow revenge on his son for obeying his orders. So the moment of revenge has finally come. However this will take a while, for three reasons."

"Sokar" a pentagon with five spikes appeared "is Ra's predecessor, and lost most of his power, even if he kept a massive amount of industry. He will try to conquer his former domain, and might use Heru'ur's attacks against the Rectangle to kill him while he's occupied fighting in a mine field."

Ba'al's symbol appeared over parts of the galaxy lit up in dark gray and enclosing an Asgard zone. "As much as Apophis and Heru'ur hate each other, they still are family and will group together as long as there is an outside threat. Ba'al is the most obvious threat, as he is seen as a traitor that left Terra before Ra fell, being able to guess what would happen. Over the past several centuries, he has conquered many minor Goa'uld, used their Jaffa warriors as cannon fodder and took over their worlds. He has the will, the influence and the resources to win."

"His domain ends only fifty light years from the current coreward-spinward border of the Rectangle after he conquered the buffer zone provided by minor Goa'uld fifty years ago, but he still kept clear of the border systems. No one invades Ra's territory and can hope to survive it, after all. All the System Lords together could possibly have managed that, but no one could build such an alliance and keep it functional long enough to succeed.

"Ba'al is very dangerous, as he has proven to be[i]competent[/i], spending the armies of his former foes to conquer new worlds under oversight of his own men. His successes give him massive strategic depth as well as access to resources second only to Sokar or Ra and his family. We suspect him to have gained quite a number of Tok'ra spies – a term I will explain later – in the process."

Two horns appeared over another, much less cohesive territory.

"Cronus. He is a mortal enemy of Apophis, but still allied with Ra and him to overthrow Sokar and install Ra as Supreme System Lord. He was the one who formally banished Sokar, resulting in a giant thirst for revenge in the latter. Still, this alliance did not hold long, and now he opposes Apophis again."

Leaving the holo unchanged, he gave a short summary. "As a result, you can expect a fragile alliance between Heru'ur and Apophis, each of them ready to attack each other, defending against Ba'al, Cronus and Sokar, who will be fighting each other much more than they do Ba'al, and possibly even more than they do Heru'ur and Apophis.

Then, of course, there are numerous lesser Goa'uld trying to build a domain of their own, or at least a good place at a major player's court in the chaos.

This will soon become a veritable melee with alliances breaking up as soon as the 'allies' feel they can afford to do so."

"As for possible other Rectangle nations..." he continued "We only have a few essential facts – they seem to have significant strategic depth and have enough industry to keep the networks going. Those bordering to the Empire can also be expected to have military arms good enough to survive against imperial onslaught, so we at least can assume they aren't toothless. On the other hand, the Empire still exists, so they can't be that much better, either. One of them is even well-organized enough to move to the galactic core, not a small undertaking with your drive systems."

Everyone in the room was silent for a moment before the Minister of War spoke up "Nelron Kunai, Ambassador Nem, thank you for this information. However, we have to keep in mind that the Empire could easily destroy us, if it weren't for internal problems and us playing them. So I have no reason to assume coexistence means military parity. Anyway, if we may come back to the domains… I do not see much cohesive territory in these domains. So where can we expect the front lines?"

"That is a good point, thanks for pointing it out. You will have to expect them basically everywhere, Minister. The only exceptions would be a few acknowledged diplomatic areas all over the galaxy. You need to keep in mind that few Goa'uld even consider strategic depth, while most of them only care about gaining new worlds by Stargate. Obviously, gate access makes placement in the galaxy irrelevant, as long as it is not part of an Asgard system, the Rectangle, the Chum'ai Rift or too close to a black hole.

"Allow me to explain the standard Goa'uld domain, then you will understand better. On average, a Goa'uld domain consists of about 50% in several clusters of worlds with stargates that are reasonably close together, centered on at least one fortress world. Each of the fortresses holds enough ships to deal with most invaders. This is helped by the fact that the clusters are usually quite a distance apart, as no Goa'uld tolerates a rival cluster too close to his own. Then, there are barracks worlds, which function as their name suggests. As a rule of thumb, about 4 or 5% of all Goa'uld worlds are fortress worlds and another percent consists of barracks while the remainder can be expected to be about as developed as Abydos. The other half of their worlds not part of a cluster are spread all over the galaxy and can be conquered by some random other System Lord storming through the gate without having any holdings nearby. More powerful Lords have more and larger clusters, while the lowest ranking lords usually only control random worlds.

"Dialing in from barracks worlds, we identified at least two kinds of fortresses – worlds to which the Jaffa deliver the goods they got from the slave worlds and as such can be dialed from a barracks world, and those that the Jaffa do not deliver goods to and can not. Trying to dial the latter ended with the request being bounced to a well defended deathworld every time, while the former always ended in dead operatives. As for barracks worlds... Let me show you something. What you are seeing now is the gate desert on Dilmun, our homeworld."

The holo changed to the Oannes' homeworld's gate desert, showing a warrior in full gear wearing his sonic weaponry and a well-armored camouflage suit over a hydration unit. Saluting, he activated the gate, stepping through, and the picture switched to his sensor output. Running towards the woods, away from the gate, the six Jaffa spewing staff fire at him and the railroad tracks leading away from the clearing it was located on, he turned his head left and right. Suddenly, a metal spire pierced the ground, opened its top and released a Jaffa sitting inside of the spire. The gunner moved something – probably a HUD – before her right eye and then started shooting with both staff cannons in turn, showing no better aim than the Jaffa they had met on Abydos. Still, a close hit with a staff cannon would be more than enough to kill.

Fortunately, the warrior survived the procedure, reaching the woods, and the datafeed terminated, leaving the audience with the impression of solid gate defenses. "This is the close in defense network of a barracks world – or at least as much as was activated against a lone interloper. Better defenses are located two of your kilometers away from the gate because of the way Jaffa warfare works, but there's nothing that could stop you closer than that. Our operative managed to escape the gate area to a nearby lake where he faked his death, ending the Jaffa hunt for him. He finally made it back after several months of scouting.

"There is no doubt that Goa'uld defend their truly important worlds well, even if only a few of them were ever observed to dial out, always delivering vast amounts equipment to the troops.

"Then, there are forgotten worlds, those that either rebelled like you did or simply lost their gates. This can only happen if the world had no vital role and was not close to a cluster. Therefore, clusters try to include formerly isolated worlds or abandoned worlds as they expand. Officially, the Goa'uld also refer to worlds claimed by the Asgard as abandoned worlds, although in practice they're treated differently."

"So these Asgard..." Rohde began.

"The Asgard Union could effortlessly deal with the Goa'uld. Coming from the Ida galaxy," he ignored the shocked gasps this caused "they opted to leave our galaxy, which they call Avalon, alone. Instead, they decided to protect only a pathetically low number of worlds, not all of them even inhabited, By doing so, they ceded Humanity to a slave species of the System Lords, even restricting the Humans under their 'protection' to a technological level of development that is not considered threatening by the System Lords. Note, they allowed the Goa'uld to define 'threat'." Kunai answered, his voice enough evidence what he thought of [i]that[/i]. "Of course, they could also be dead. No one has heard of them since my grandfather was young."

Which, Secretary-General Edurado Montalva translated, probably meant ten- or twelve thousand years. "This means there are possible allies, such as Tollana" He stated.

"Yes, there are. While we cannot expect help from the Asgard, and I can not speak for anyone native to the Rectangle, there are several options.

First, the gates were not seeded by the Goa'uld, but only found by them. This means there could well be worlds off the known grid that hold help. Also, some other rebel worlds by now could easily hold technologically advanced civilizations. Still, don't hope for the Gate Builders, our history tells us they weren't helpful even long before they left.

"Second, Humanity wasn't the Goa'uld's first host species, and what applies to Human rebel worlds applies even more to earlier host species, due to a much longer time frame to work with. This is most likely what happened on Tok.
Thirdly, there are the previously mentioned Tok'ra. These are a group of Goa'uld originating from a queen gone rogue. They believe in voluntary Goa'uld-Human unification and use their nature to blend in. Unfortunately, they are not very successful, and our attempts of cooperation ran into problems with their arrogance towards non-starfaring people."

"There are 'gods' fighting Ra, and it's not because of their worlds and riches?" Ska'ara asked intrigued.

"They would feel insulted if you called them 'gods', and yes, they are doing it because they feel what the System Lords do is wrong and a racial shame.

Unfortunately, if you don't have spaceships and armies to impress them, they don't take you seriously. And of course – no insult intended -, they're as short-sighted as most other races, even if they technically live longer than Oannes do, however their constant host switches make them unable to keep on a single long-term plan, especially as the members of their ruling council do it at different times. You're lucky if they think a millennium ahead." Kunai answered. "If you ask me, your best bet would be to ally with local powers and old rebel worlds, maybe Tollana, or Hebridan."

"And inside the Rectangle?" Rohde asked, and the head of ARGUS answered.

"Our contacts in the Vegan Region inform us that there is rising unrest in the Kimashargur worlds and the Geonee Region, but neither the Vegans, nor the Kimashargur are ready to repel an imperial punitive expedition, let alone a concerted attack. The Vegans are neither willing nor ready to face a second Muan Issler, although they still thirst for revenge. We also cannot afford to show unorthodox technology there, so we can't cooperate with them... for now. This goes double for the Geonee, as giving them any hope would just result in yet another useless revolt not timed right for a useful distraction. Right now, it would only raise imperial alertness. Still, an alliance would add several worlds and the population of Terra from the Vegans, and another few billion from the Geonee. As such, preparations are already underway."

With a nod, the Minister of War signaled that this answer was satisfying.

[b]Joint Chiefs meeting

Ministry of War, New York City

April 4th, 2157[/b]

The mood in the conference room was at an all-time low. After nearly a decade of rebuilding from the Third Interstellar War and nuclear bombardment by the Vilani, Terra finally had defenses they were confident could withstand any likely threat, only to have those defenses severely damaged and nearly destroyed by a single ship.

"Gentlemen, thank you for coming." Marko Rohde, Minister of War, greeted the assembled highest officers of the Confederation, activating the holo viewer, calling up a file, so it showed a map of the local arm, showing the Abydonian Commonwealth, Terran Confederation and Ziru Sirka – as well as a blinking dot 60 parsecs rimward from Terra. "ARGUS and the Oannes informed me that the vessel attacking us last week was a Ha'tak attack cruiser, the mainstay of the Goa'uld fleet. It was identified as the Chu'alahk, one of two vessels stationed at a space station called 'Bahlon Habitat, the place where Ra started and ended his journeys into Charted Space. As such, the probability is high that this was a better ship than most other Ha'tak, but we still expended most of our nuclear stock to beat the equivalent of a Galaxy, including all armed vessels in Terra's Jump Denial Zone with losses at a third of the Global Defense Net and forty percent of Home Fleet. This is unacceptable." he shook his head, looking at his colleagues.

"So they either didn't fall for the Abydonian trick, or they fell for it, sent someone to pick up Ra and got angry when they found out they got fooled." Thomas Garcia, Grand Admiral of the Navy, added. "We know that Ha'taks have FTL comms, so it would be foolish to assume they aren't going to be missed. But we know their drive has to slow down to a bit below jump-2 to operate safely in here."

"In the 'Death Rectangle', yes." Chester O'Brien, Commandant of the Marine Corps, nodded.

"Indeed. This does pose interesting questions, though. We have identified the main obstacles faced by Goa'uld ships to be jump bubbles, which can be easily fitted to known trade routes." Garcia zoomed out the holoview and overlaid a red rectangle. "You all got the briefing notes and the records, so you know we have to assume that there are at least six other jump drive states active in the galaxy, one of them actively expanding out of the Rectangle."

Rohde nodded "While this is interesting, it isn't relevant in the short term. What we need now are defense measures. Thomas, do we have any plans ready to implement?"

"Not exactly, Marko. The closest we have is a Galaxy refit proposal. Using Barnardium/Trinium hull and armor, we can see if it can perhaps survive the first hit and be able to fight back. Barnardium-boosted reactors will cut down power plant size and Engineering crew, or improve the power reserves while allowing us to cram in bigger drives and improve maneuverability. Changing the basic design to a cylinder, just like the Empire does with its cruisers, and thus reducing surface area, also produces massive savings in cost and Barnardium needed for construction while improving the ship's protection. Of course we'll also reduce all secondary crew numbers such as the marine complement. Then there's a proposal of the Verne Station refit along the same lines, but enlarging the reactor to cut down reload times from a minute to a few seconds. Concerning stations and ships, I'm afraid that's all we can do on short notice, especially while mining in the Abydos system has yet to reach the required capacity. All will get cryscomp upgrades, of course."

"Do it, both proposals. Mid- and long term, I want new designs whenever a new technology is reverse engineered or just improved. I especially want shields and those plasma guns. In the meantime, phase x-ray lasers out to more ships, like the Free Traders. Every single cannon in orbit helps, and if we can't stand up against their firepower… I think sluggish, squishy Trinium hulls – if even that – with big drives are an acceptable way to go. Still, sacrificing crews on ships purposefully built as glass cannons or not – that's a political decision I have to clear with the Secretary-General. Concerning ships and stations, you said. What else can you offer?"

"We can improve missile yield by adding Barnardium to the warhead – increasing the yield a hundredfold." Garcia handed him a holodisk. "These are the ramp up estimates for my proposals."

"Do it. I'll have my people look over it, but if they come to the same conclusions, including costs and schedules, I can approve it myself, so you can begin preliminary work already. Put a comparison with a shotgun missile in, this relativistic sandcaster was truly impressive. A bigger drive, a sandcaster instead of a warhead, maybe something to dial from shotgun to a narrow beam." He said, after a quick glance at the report.

"Yes, Sir. Lieutenant Pertiwi has already been put forward for both the Star of Terra and the Cross of Sol for his sacrifice." Garcia nodded solemnly.

"He will get them." Rohde said with a serious face. A moment later, he added, switching the topic and addressing the General of the Army with a nod. "I'm afraid you will have to wait a bit longer for your new tanks, Nioka."

"I know that my men have no chance against orbital strikes, so anything helping to get rid of [i]that[/i] is fine with the Terran Army, Marko." Nioka Smith answered with a thoughtful face. „We don't need another '48, even if that means we'll probably have shields figured out before I get the tanks." He said, earning a few chuckles. "But what we do need is this metal folding tech." he called up new schematics. "This is a Goa'uld helmet, proof against our service pistols and anything they can expect from people like the Abydonians. It can also fold back into a patch the size of a one Solar coin. The Research Departments obviously do not have the specs yet, but here is what they did with the idea and observed properties."

The picture changed into a standard issue infantry uniform with a few extra metal patches, which easily unfolded extra layers of armor until it was a full body suit. "This armor would be proof against our infantry rifles, maybe a machine gun in low power mode, and definitely vacuum, without any loss of mobility when only the standard uniform is needed."

"You sold me. I'll have my people check. I can't make promises, but we probably will tell R&D to make metal folding an army priority research."

"Tell them to contact Hasegawa." Garcia stepped in. "I met their CEO at a dinner yesterday and he offered me to develop metal folding emergency hull patches with us, so maybe they already have some know how. It's not as if the Free Traders or the Belters wouldn't pay through the nose for it. Or emergency pressure suits built into uniforms, at that. They should be willing to pay a sizable part of the development."

"Will do, thanks for the information." Smith nodded, taking a note on his perscomp, one of the first models that included crystal technology and thus now rivaled a civilian desktop computer while being substantially smaller and more hardened than his old perscomp.

"This will also get alpha priority. We finally found a way to use the computers of Ra's ship for our own needs, and R&D tells me we can expect to run the first simulations next month." Rohde stated "Kaufmann ordered it for its gatefighter aerodynamics, but that will get second place after metalfolding."

"I have to admit, I thought that would be assigned to medical research first?"

"You'd think so, yes. But both ordered imperialtech supercomputers are already installed and running, so they don't need this."

"Ah." Smith smiled understandingly. The medical situation still used up most logistical capacity, though – the "plagues" Earth had unleashed followed the imperial trade routes and hundreds of freighters were busy shipping medication to the border, were it was sold at cost.

For all the deaths the Ziru Sirka had caused, no one wanted to conquer it by wrecking it the way the Americas had been hit when the first settlers came. Terra sent soldiers, not mass murderers

"Coming back to what you said," Garcia continued "shields are an important point. Until we can figure how to duplicate them, something we expect to require up to two years even with Oannes support, questioning Osiris and the data Hathor gave us before she fled, we can only use armor against the Goa'uld weaponry. There is one thing we can do at short notice." He called up the schematics of an armor slab. "Research in the imperial database has brought up old designs for integrated starship grade electromagnetic armor. Performance reviews show tripled protection against plasma weapons and shaped-charge penetrators, which fits nicely to our estimates from upscaled tank armor."

"They phased it out?" Rohde queried, unfazed by the lack of help from allies and prisoners. Those were helping well enough in other areas.

"Yes. According to the files, they did it when the Geonee perfected particle weaponry around 700 B.C., making it useless against long range weapons and as such a total waste of tonnage. This was before the widespread adaption of cheaper, more lightweight and more versatile Barnardium/Trinium armor, and therefore only works with Trinium hulls. As this is more than two millennia old, we would need to modernize the systems by integrating the perfected versions of systems built into it, but if we design it to only apply at a single hit and only when noticing a powerful enough plasma blast approaching, mass and cost should be acceptable. This could be ready at the end of the year, a Barnardium/Trinium version up to a year later. Working from the old database means applying it to the Nuskuan shipyards is not a problem. We also discussed modified sandcaster ammunition, distributing ablative foam instead of the standard anti-laser 'sand'."

"How effective is that expected to be?"

"It's a stopgap measure that might also help reduce plasma turret weaponry effectiveness. For anything more powerful than a deathglider or low end Al'kesh cannon, it might as well be wet tissue paper. Still, it is cheap, can be deployed easily and doesn't need a lot of new infrastructure."

"Might even boost morale a bit. I hereby authorize research on this, on the foamcasters as well. See if we can use resources at Nusku for that, they know the database best., after all."

"Yes, Sir."

[b]Enleshkaadshar suite, 58th floor

Apartment building between Nile and Pyramids

Giza, Egypt, Terra

April 20, 2157[/b]

Sitting in his comfy chair, Eneri read a captivating book about the earliest days of the Prometheus colony as his housekeeper came in.

"Sir, there's someone at the door for you."

"Does he have an appointment?" he queried without taking his eyes from the book, knowing very well he had none scheduled for today.

"No, but I think you want to meet him."

"Oh?" he placed a finger between the pages and looked up "And why would that be, Ms. Frye?"

"Because he said he's got a job for you and he said he is from the government, Sir."

"Egyptian?"

"No. Terran Confederation, Shugilii." A tall, well-tanned man in his late thirties stepped in and bowed in the appropriate way. He wore an expensive, classy suit, dark shades and a black suitcase, which he placed on Eneri's expensive living room table.

"You piqued our interest, and your CV since you came here convinced us. The Confederation has a job for you, Shugilii." he continued in High Vilani.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mr. …?" Enleshkaadshar answered in English.

"El-Baradei."

"Mr. El-Baradei, then. I will not fight against the Ziru Sirka for you."

"That is… interesting, but beside the point. I am not talking about a job against the Empire. Quite frankly, the Empire isn't the biggest problem any more."

"Yes, I have seen the videos on your global net. The ship was… impressive."

"That's one way to put it." Baradei raised his eyebrows, then opened his suitcase and took out Eneri's book. "We need your expertise. This offered a unique view of Ra's Empire, and I am pretty sure you kept back quite an amount of information, even if only because you did not consider it relevant."

Now it was Eneri's turn to be surprised. "You… want me to become a consultant to your gate program?"

"And step through the gate to have a look at any ruins we might find. Take part in the Ancient Memory Project."

"Why would you want me to do that? I couldn't remember anything from Terra."

"Yes, but memories of old Vland should be interesting to a Shugilii, shouldn't they? Might even answer the Origins question."

"I have to admit, you have a point there. Although I do not share the Terran interest in finding out where we come from – rest assured, it isn't this backwater."

The agent chose not to reply to that, simply raising an eyebrow slightly before continuing the original topic. "We will not send you to the Oannes home world, though. The memory retrieval will be done in their embassy."

"The Oannes embassy? Interesting…"

[b]Command center, Fortress world,

Somewhere deep in Ra's domain

April 22th, 2157[/b]

"Thew meeting will come to order." Ra's Supreme Prime stated calmly, his uniform reinforcing his voice enough to cut through the subdued conversations with ease. Sitting here were the most powerful Jaffa in Ra's domain, their helmets folded in. Immediately the voices ebbed down. "Is there any new information? Do we have any idea what happened to Ra or who killed him?"

Everyone just shook his head, men centuries old looking very, very tired.

Everyone but a dark-skinned giant of a man with long braids wearing the symbol of Ra made from a Trinium-Naquada alloy answered. "Unfortunately, the Eye of Ra can not answer this, Supreme Prime. What we can report is that we lost Contact with the Chu'alahk after it reported entering Tau'ra space to investigate subspace readings. Further checks showed Asgard comm. traffic and drive signatures inside the Rectangle, so we closed that case. Ba'al, Sokar, Cronus, Heru'ur, Apophis and several hundred minor gods are mobilizing their fleets. Thanks to OBELISK, most of them won't be a problem, while LOCKDOWN and SIEGE will deal with most of the rest, but not with all of them.

"Heru'ur already claimed his father's domain, Apophis did so on behalf of his brother 'until his little boy has grown out of needless resource wasting' and Sokar just told us to step aside now 'the usurper has proven his incompetence'." Roars of rage at the insult filled the room, but the Jaffa continued as calmly as before. "Cronus just plain claimed he killed him, and now he'd like to collect the reward, please. Ba'al, on the other hand, threatened us with a full blown invasion without even the flimsiest legal appeal. Internally, the Hekliar cluster is now refusing to obey us, and we have so far identified a dozen underlords who have either claimed titles or are simply trying to carve out their own empires."

"I hate to admit this, but an invasion by Ba'al has a good chance of succeeding." Ra's War Prime, an old warrior with centuries worth of experience in the enchanter fleet and operative command of all the domain's military resources, stated, causing quite a lot of concern. "He has conquered twenty minor gods, including not-so-minor ones such as Moloc, and now possesses at least five secret worlds on top of six transport ones and an estimated thirteen enchantment worlds, giving him a place in industrial output directly behind Sokar. Additionally, his territories are much closer together and shielded against most invaders by the Rectangle.

He also managed to counteract the OBELISK signal, and we're pretty sure he analyzed it. There is only a single, medium Heru'ur cluster rimwards to his domain spinwards to the Rectangle, and, once this is secured, we can expect at least six fleets with battle hardened veterans available to him. Thankfully, most of his resources elsewhere will be tied down fighting the other four, but on this front we might as well surrender. Of our five reserve enchanter fleets, two of them are on their way towards Hekliar, two others are watching the underlords and one could be sent towards Ba'al."

"Builder Prime, what is the status of the defense network towards Ba'al?" a concerned Supreme Prime asked.

"Most of the maintenance done in the last fifty years went there, but before that, our primary concern was Sokar, far ahead of Cronus, with Ba'al and the others only a tertiary concern for well over two millennia. Yes, his border is watched, and we have two enchanter Ha'tak squadrons ready to intercept anything he sends in at the primary vector alone, but sensor coverage still is spotty. As we just finished the Cronus defense, most of the defense satellites at the Ba'al border are scheduled for maintenance over the next five centuries."

"Ba'al's fleets won't even slow down for two squadrons and a base, especially with the crew quality we have there, so all the time spent in sim pods and the exercises since LOCKDOWN and SIEGE won't help much." The War Prime chimed in "He has six fleets available. Even if he can only free four of them for a move against us once he got Heru'ur's cluster and they're all warriors, that's till roughly four hundred Ha'tak entering the Rectangle. We expect him to come out with about twenty, but that assumes he actually enters the Rectangle, which is very improbable. If he were that stupid, he wouldn't be as much of a problem, so we can't assume he commits suicide by storming the Rectangle." He let a map appear above the table "So, I think we will have a unified domain of Ba'al as our only neighbor on the spinward-rimward border of the Rectangle, with Moloc's former domain between us and the corridor to core- and spinward. This means we will have only one enemy to spinward and most to the rim. Our only chance to deal with that outside of attacking ourselves is by subverting his underlords, but seeing how these now serve the one System Lord they can expect to be a major problem to us…"

"Your strategic insights to the trailing border of the rectangle region, War Prime?"

"The situation is much better, but unlike the Ba'al border, there is a prize between the Rectangle and the border. Heru'ur has small holdings, but his alliance with Apophis should earn him many new conquests. Still, Sokar and Cronus will keep them occupied for a long, long time and our seven fleets there just finished their maintenance cycles. We will have four System Lords battering each other to death behind the border. Meanwhile, our border defenses can easily deal with most of their incursions, and for the rest, we have fleets. On this front, the exercises actually helped a lot, because we kept half of the troops there as enchanters longer than originally planned, helping to bring the warriors in better shape by providing a competent training enemy, obviously without leaving the martial code. As a result, we can afford to relocate a reserve fleet from there."

"Eye Prime?"

"The Eye of Ra agrees with the military and war-related analysis the War Prime just delivered. We have infiltrated the fleets of Ra's family well enough to know their motives, and some of them even watch their rivals. As War already said, primary sensor coverage towards Ba'al is spotty, which is why The Eye built a second layer of sensor stations. A few days ago, they were all triggered by subspace signatures we identified as Al'Kesh or Tel'tac entering the Rectangle at a course taking them deep in instead of skipping the border for a 'surprise' attack. Still, I have to agree to War. To assume he goes there to die is to succumb to wishful thinking. The Eye interprets it as a scouting mission, but Ba'al's chances for success are negligible, and he will most probably just learn the hard way why no one messes with the Rectangle."

The men discussed for several hours, then decided to send two fleets to reinforce the Ba'al border, but otherwise lay down and block anyone entering their domain while they dealt with the internal usurpers… with the sole exception of a small cluster far away from the Rectangle. It was unimportant, but well-defended enough to cause havoc and make the rumors about Ra's death less believable.

The Tau'ra case was considered closed – while the planet was marked down as protected, the Asgard would have left no questions open if they had killed Ra and informed all System Lords about their reasons, so they definitely did not do it.

[b]2528 Arcturus, outer system

May 31th, 2157[/b]

A small light show announced the arrival of the 50 ship strong construction fleet, a picket ship immediately updating the survey data and the rest of the fleet waited for the result of these checks while two tankers started to burn for the closest giant to refill their tanks.

After a few hours, the ships burned towards a frozen moon roughly 60% the size of Terra orbiting the smallest of the system's three gas giants.

Under the light of the system's red dwarf star, the infrastructure necessary for the road to Abydos was growing like it had at Ra's Demise, which was already becoming a home for thousands of Navy and Colonial Bureau members preparing the trek to trailing.

In the meantime, every system reachable from Demise by jump drive or used as a stepping stone towards Abydos was thoroughly explored by scout squadrons, and two potential colonies able to sustain billions without much technical assistance had already been identified.

[b]2928 Arcturus

Near the underwater energy reading

July 2nd, 2157[/b]

A probe dove hundreds of meters deep, cruising away from one of the islands that were this world's only land masses towards the strange readings that scanners had been able to pick up from orbit.

Driven by the same drive system as any vehicle known in Charted Space, from starships to civilian cars, it silently went lower, no moving parts giving away its location by noise while searchlights were scanning the area.

It did not stay undetected long. Suddenly, warning systems went off as it was hit by a sonar scan that rapidly shifted from search to targeting mode.

Out of the depths, an animal shot towards the probe. Its forty meter body was covered in a thick armored shell, with two fin triplets and a snout big enough to swallow two grown men whole.

As the mouth with rows of sharp teeth opened, it let go a primeval scream that caused dampers to kick in to prevent the audience becoming deaf. It had nothing alike to whale song's beauty, just a simple cry of rage.

As the animal's long tail shot past, one of its three gigantic tail fins gave the probe a bone-crushing hit, sending it tumbling into the depths.

[b]A few kilometers away

Mobile base on land[/b]

"That is going to be a challenge." Kunat stated to himself, watching the last pictures of the randomly moving camera that somehow had survived this strike. "Frankly, I doubt what we can find there is wor..." he stopped, quickly freezing the last picture the probe sent.

I clearly showed a stargate half buried in sediment, a strange pedestal next to it... and two eggs the size of a small car each.

With a yell, the Oannes scientist ran out of the little spaceship that served as the camp's central for the week they had been here, getting a strange look from a Terran on his way to the bases' shower section.

Outside, Kunat sped towards a tent close to the coast, doing so easier in the lower gravity on this world, causing the scouts from Tok as well as the humans to scramble towards him as he yelled. "A gate! There's a gate in the ocean!"

Silence sprang, and he ran to the tent his warrior colleague resided in.

Just as he arrived, it opened, and the uniformed warrior came out, not wearing humidifiers on this ocean world. "A gate?"

"Yes. A stargate, probably functional, no dialing unit detected. On the other hand, we have pictures of a pedestal of unknown kind. It was covered somewhat in sediment, but on first gaze looks like an Alteran device."

[i]That[/i] got the warrior's attention. "I'll immediately request recovery and cleanup teams."

"This will not be enough." the scientist stated, pulling out a holodisk and handing it over, showing the warrior the animal's attack. He wholeheartedly agreed to using a cleanup team, you never knew what the Alterans had left lying around this time, after all. And those readings made a potentia inside a real possibility.

With a nod, the soldier took out his hand communicator, inserted the disk and watched the attack. A moment later, he established a subspace connection to Luna using the Oannes comm built into the base as a relay and spoke.

"This in Holkar on 2928. Kunat just detected a stargate in the ocean, as well as an unknown artifact of possible Alteran origin. They are located on a medium depth continental shelf in what looks like the nest of a class A predator. Requesting a full recovery and cleanup team with hunter units. Initiating transfer of sensor readings."

[b]Abydos

three days later[/b]

The gate activated, spitting out a small modular spaceship holding gate train modules on a small intermittent support trip first.

A minute later, several leek vehicles shot through the gate in perfect formation, following the ship towards the spaceport. Sleek space- and atmosphere-capable underwater vehicles with the sign of the Oannes Coalition emblazoned on their sides, they were well armed for combat against animals, their fully enclosed cockpits supporting extreme depths and providing excellent armor.

The hunter units were arriving for their trip to the Alteran artifact.

[b]Ba'al's throne world

August 2157[/b]

Ba'al stared at the Readouts, fascinated by the data Zarin's spies had collected for him. There was a chance; a chance he had not had in millennia, if ever. And it was about the right time. His host was old, and as he tried to reduce sarcophagus use to the necessary minimum, he was already beginning to look for a new one.

It was bad to buy into your own propaganda, after all.

He was no god. He was sick of pretending to be one, of the backstabbing, the forced slaves, of Goa'uld "civilization". There had been one thing he envied the Tok'ra for – their willing hosts. All he wanted was power, wealth and influence.

In theory, you could get those cheaper. In practice, no human would accept him – except for a few sycophants, and it was bad enough to endure them if they weren't the host. The propaganda was just too far-spread and strong.

But now, there were interstellar alien empires, hidden in Ra's former territory. They were powerful. They were technologically advanced. They were rich.

They had never heard of him.

Absentmindedly, he opened a channel. [b]"Rej'car."[/b]

Moments later, his Warrior First Prime bowed before him. "My Lord?"

Pointing to the galactic map and marking a region inside the Rectangle, he ordered [b]"Dispatch a Ha'tak squadron here. Have them catch me some locals, including their ships. I want them intact; I might take one of them as a host. Don't mess with their navies; catch single ships instead. They shall not know about our presence until I decide otherwise."[/b]

"Yes, my Lord."

Pointing to a region of the map, he ordered [b]"And begin to move the fleets towards the Rectangle; we will begin conquering Ra's territory in this region. Also, get me Nerus!"[/b]

"By your command, my Lord."

Soon afterward, the fat scientist entered. [b]"What is it, my Lord, I was just enjoying Lu…"[/b]

[b]"I'm thinking about changing hosts. What can you tell me about the Vargr?"[/b]

[b]"Changing Races? Oh, how tempting! You will want new Jaf…"[/b] as Ba'al frowned, Nerus immediately changed topic.

[b]"From what we got out of our prisoners and their ships, the Vargr are a local race with multiple empires utilizing the local FTL drive – an utterly fascinating one. Even if the device itself is rubbish, the underlying principle..."[/b] Ba'al's frown deepened. [b]"Their society is based on personal charisma, so the borders constantly change. According to local sources, they don't really get the concept of 'territory', so a Vargr state consists of people and industry, not land. As they have no FTL comm., any state bigger than a solar system is a real problem.

They are of Tau'ra stock and remind me of the dogs many slave races keep. Intercepted transmissions lead me to believe that they have superior, if in some areas… less useful senses. They are faster, more dextrous but weaker. However, it is nothing we can't fix, my Lord.

The most troubling thing is their name. It is used in many Asgard-influenced societies, but there is no visible Asgard influence at all. Also, the region is not mentioned in any treaty I know of."[/b]

[b]"Nor do I know of one."[/b] Ba'al nodded [b]"So they would be a fitting choice."[/b]

[b]"If you can live with a tail and a fur? Human experience with dogs might make your body language easy to read. Otherwise, they strike me as a near-perfect choice, both physically and psychically. We will need to get rid of their lower strength and endurance, update their auditory sense..."[/b]

[b]"And the eyes. I want my next host to have night vision again. Ra was a fucking idiot for not editing that into the humans. That feature was great in the Unas."[/b]

[b]"Of course. We also might need some technology if you do not want to lose all your current senses and abilities…"[/b]

[b]"See to it. And yes, look into Vargr Jaffa. I have already ordered a few ships to be captured and directed the growth of my domain accordingly. Oh, and prepare an explanatory briefing on our FTL comms. for them."[/b] Turning back to the data, Ba'al dismissed the scientist. He wanted to learn Gvegh, and would have to develop plans to relocate billions of Jaffa to improve the grasp of his new domain. The Vargr Extents would be his, and it would be done nothing like the old way.

It was a fresh start, and if he had to purge his Jaffa to avoid abuse of his new subjects, he would happily do so. It was time to change the way he operated.

[b]Milky Way[/b]

The subspace carrier wave had traveled for millennia without contact. Now it entered the Milky Way, it all changed.

Asgard transmitters picked it up, decrypting the signal, checking it, crosschecking it, then broadcasting their own high priority signals. These were different. Where the original message had sacrificed speed and bandwith for intergalactic range and error correction, these messages were doing the rerverse.

Asgard ships everywhere did the same, relaying it as military emergency signals. If this had been Ida, the galaxy would have been lit up now. Ship AIs kicked the crews out of whatever they were doing, klaxons blaring and emergency lights coming online. Many worlds with subspace systems picked these spikes up, mostly hiding from the feared wrath of the Asgard. But a few planets did, in fact, answer.

And yet, most places that answered were actually allied bases – Ancient and Nox voices joining in, and Heliopolis screaming the message out as good as the remaining systems could.

[b]Ha'tak, fleet pel'tak

Frontier system[/b]

Enchanter-Fleet master Mor'kej Korna frowned. The fleet he was currently leading for Heru'ur against one of Apophis's was turning into a disaster. The attackers had spotted a weakness in his own defenses and totally shattered his own, which he watched at the holoscreen in front of him.

Talking into the intercom, he gave new orders. "Enchanter-battlegroup master, move group five to coordina..." he was rudely interrupted when the computer activated a klaxon, freezing the picture of the battle, which currently ground to a standstill.

ATTENTION ALL SHIPS

CASE: WARHAMMER

ASGARD ACTIVITY DETECTED

FLEET STRENGTH

MILITARY NATURE

LOCAL STRENGTH INSUFFICIENT

IMMEDIATE RETREAT

ATTENTION

CASE: CHARIOT

MILITARY ANCIENT ACTIVITY

RETREAT

RETREAT

RETREAT

He saw the fleetwide channel opening on his screen, unable to speak for several long seconds. Finally, he began to speak.

"Attention all ships, this is your Enchanter-Fleet master. We have Cases Warhammer and Chariot, Break! Retreat to closest base immediately."

Outside, hyperspace windows opened in both fleets as they stopped firing at each other. Other than their Jaffa brothers who were raised as warriors, no Enchanter captain would consider dying for glory in battle, and so his orders were obeyed without question or hesitation.

Staring at the computer's reactions to the frantic Asgard and Ancient traffic on their battle screens, all Enchanter-Ship masters were anticipating the order and, hearing it from their superiors, they ran. They were more useful alive.

But of course, none of them ran before all their STL only small craft and life pods had been collected.

[b]2928

Near the nest

August 5th[/b]

The vehicles sped towards the underwater nest, one of them banking away sharply before this happened, liberately trying to pull out the animals. It was not very successful, as one of the animals shot out into the bay, while the remaining two still watched the nest, scanning the area with their powerful sonar.

Each of the attack vehicles fired their main armaments at the guardians, chasing them away in pain for a few seconds. That was enough time to break into the nest, allowing the one unarmed model to land and activate its shield generator, keeping out the now furious animals.

Immediately afterwards, the pilots left their vehicles and swam towards the gate, beginning to unbury it while the shield was under constant attack. All of a sudden, the attacks stopped as all subspace comms on the planet suddenly went mad.

"Hey, we got something next to the gate." one of the scientists yelled into the comm channel. "Got an active potentia signature at the Alteran unit! The predators are leaving!"

As the pedestals activated their own subspace comms to scream for help, the water around them began to cook, causing the divers to dig it all up quickly.

So they clamped gate, still active Alteran pedestal and a dialing pedestal onto the vehicles, covering all of them in a shield bubble and leaving the ocean.

Arriving at land, they dropped gate and pedestals onto a prepared plot and started to meticulously scan their finds while every subspace comm in the system listened in.

[b]Antarctica, Terra, Sol[/b]

As the signal passed through Terra, eons old machinery woke up to answer a call for help.

AVALON BASE

UNMANNED; MEDICAL QUARANTINE

DRONE STOCKS: CRITICAL

POTENTIA: DEPLETED

FLEET UNITS IN SECTOR: NONE

QUERY: FOUR RACES EMERGENCY?

POTENTIA: DEPL...

With this last scream, the outpost used its last remaining ZPM reserves, then died.

[b]HEO, Terra, Sol[/b]

Satellites and ships changed vectors, pointing all their sensors at the Ross Sea, trying to get as much information about the sudden energy spike as they could.

And even more ice was melting under the ZPM's last output.

A/N: Wow, this took ages, and my muse is this in a coma. Still, I got something finished and can finally upload it here.

Anyway, this is where it becomes truly AU. The Goa'uld domains here are based on a few things: The pure need for an industrial base, the fact that there are fortresses impenetrable to the SGC mentioned, and S03E09 "Rules of Engagement", which included Goa'uld subjects training to play a SG-unit good enough to fool O'Neill for a while.

As I had to redesign the galaxy to fit in Charted Space anyway, I used this to go wild. Some of the results are a stronger Goa'uld empire, canon Jaffa equipment/performance as part of ritualistic wargames (as Kunai hints in here) and a proper force of Jaffa soldiers, whose enchanter formations are only used once the kid gloves have come off.

Bahlon looks like Hasara Space Station in "Summit" and the Chum'ai Rift is their name for that time loop the lovesick idiot created in "Window of Opportunity".

Muan Issler was bombed to the stone age from the Oort cloud. It had enough defenses that assaulting the inner system was suicide, so the Vilani simply fired enough nuclear weapons at it to overwhelm the defenses and nuke it to the stone age, anyway.

Byzantine2793: There are two data points for that battle. One is the Ha'tak tanking a gigaton nuke at the season 1 final, and the other one is the TNT equivalent of the weapons in the Interstellar Wars ship construction rules. A heavy spinal particle cannon at TL10 (what opened the barrage) needs 70 gigawatts for a full minute before being able to fire, resulting in a 4.2 terajoule beam – which is roughly a kiloton.

But even if I made that particular Ha'tak too strong, no one says all Ha'tak are built the same. And Bahlon would get the absolute top equipment.

30 / 30