A/N:
This is my first fanfic ever. Please don't immediately lynch me if I did something wrong. Reviews are always welcome
Copyrights: I do not own the original characters of SG-1, or the universe in which they live, but I did create King Minos, Tarin and others.
CHAPTER 1 – A New Mission
"Good morning Sir."
"Morning, Carter" answered Jack O'Neill absently, as he sat down on his usual seat in the large conference room that overlooked the Stargate.
"Morning everybody" said Daniel, excited about today's mission.
"Good morning too" Said Teal'c, his usual, silent, self.
"Morning people." Said General Hammond, Chief of the Stargate Command. "I would like to start with today's briefing. You'll be leading a scouting mission to P3X-408. We have sent a MALP there, and encountered a civilization. We estimated it to be somewhere in the Roman age, because of the temples and markets."
"How did the people react to the presence of the MALP, sir?" Asked Daniel.
"They were not frightened, but they did not trust the situation completely. They have a few soldiers guarding the gate, but they did not have Goa'uld weapons."
"So no pesky snakes there, huh?" Asked O'Neill.
"It would appear so," continued Hammond, "and I'm sending you to them to forge a possible alliance. They did not have much in military power, they are after all, primitive people, but maybe they have some natural resources that they are willing to share for medicine or some technologies to help their agriculture. Please keep this mission diplomatic, we need all the allies we can get, people."
A few minutes later, SG-1 appeared in the gate room, dressed in the desert outfits of the SGC. They watched in silence as the seven chevrons of the Stargate were dialled one by one. After the usual 'kawoosh' from the gate had subsided, General Hammond wished them good luck.
SG-1 walked into the blue, standing puddle of liquid simultaneously, and they appeared almost instantly on the other side.
On the other side was a pretty large, open area. The DHD from the Stargate and the MALP that was parked next to it were there. Just as a small unit of men standing guard over their new visitors.
"Ah. The welcoming committee. Well, it's nice they're not shooting at us for a change" said Jack O'Neill.
"Greetings, strangers." Said the leader of the guards, Tarin. "My name is Tarin. I will escort you to our leader."
"Great. I'm starting to like these people. Straight and to the point." Said Jack O'Neill.
"Interesting. They appear to have not advanced very far from the ancient Romans." Said Daniel Jackson.
"Did the Ancient Romans have crossbows?" Asked O'Neill mockingly.
"As a matter-of-fact, they did, sir." Said Samantha Carter.
"How did you know?" asked Daniel, not pleasantly surprised that Carter had answered faster than him.
"I did a school project once, over weapons in history."
"Can't imagine seeing a small version of Carter holding a presentation over medieval crossbows." Said Jack O'Neill. "Can you imagine that, Teal'c?"
"I cannot, O'Neill." Said Teal'c
"The original crossbow came from China, from the 6th Century BC. It could launch metal bolts quite far away, for a weapon from only wood and hair." Said Daniel, not pleased that Sam had known a lot about historical crossbows too.
"They used HAIR in their crossbows? For what? So they could brag about having killed an enemy with hair?" said O'Neill unbelievingly.
"No Jack, they used the hair for the rope. It is an ancient process, which is not used today anymore, of course, in which they strung and winded the hairs to form a strong rope. The rope was then placed in between the ends of the metal bow, which was in turn fixed on a thick, wooden plank. They loaded the bow with metal bolts by a sort of trigger, which the wielder used to pull the string back. The trigger was then released, shooting the bolt away. Bolts are shorter, but heavier, than standard arrows..."
"Daniel," O'Neill interrupted him, "As much as I like weaponry and explosions, this crash course in crossbowology is starting to bore me."
"crossbowology? Sir, that's not even a word." Said Carter.
"Yes it is, I just made it up. Therefore, it is a word."
"O'Neill!" interrupted Teal'c
"Yea? What's t... Whoa. I wasn't expecting that!" Said Jack incredulously as they stood on the top of the stairs leading to a huge square. The gate had apparently been resting on top of a hill, because the surrounding area of the square was lower than that on which they were standing.
"Behold, the beautiful sight of our capitol city, Avalon." Said Tarin, who had followed their discussion with interest.
"Wow. It's beautiful" said Sam.
"It is remarkable. They surpassed the Romans in architecture. Think of the millions of hours of work that must have been used in the construction of these stairs alone!"
"I'm trying not to, Daniel. I'm thinking that the guy that lives over there has it all covered."
"Indeed, O'Neill. It seems that the person that resides in the palace has covered the entire area with buildings." Said Teal'c.
"That's not what I meant Teal'c. It's a metaphor for that that person must have a lot of money."
"I understand"
The group walked down the long and broad stairs that led them to the large, open square. On the square was a market, and there were a lot of people.
"The market appears to be well organised." Said Teal'c.
"What makes you say that?" said Carter.
"The market stalls are placed in straight lines with regular intervals. There pathways between the stalls are even and straight."
"Oh. I didn't notice that."
"The market was organized by our leader. He disliked the old, unorganised market, so he set up regulations for a new one. There have been no problems with the market ever since." Said Tarin.
"Who is your leader? What is he called?" asked Daniel.
"Our leader is King Minos." Answered Tarin.
"King Minos? Where we come from, there are myths and legends of an ancient king named Minos. It is believed that he reigned an empire on our planet some three-thousand years ago. But there Is much speculation over that, because there were several other kings who had almost the same name as Minos. They were also believed to have founded empires or to have some kind of wisdom." Said Daniel Jackson.
"That is indeed interesting," Answered Tarin, "because our king Minos is very wise. He has protected our people from disasters for a long time."
"What form of disasters did your king protect you from?" asked Teal'c
"Plagues, droughts and floods. Those were the most recent disaster that struck our people." Answered Tarin. "We do not often have those disasters, but when they appear we can always count on king Minos to protect us."
"Sounds like a nice guy to me." Said O'Neill.
"He is certainly a 'nice guy'. He does not reign by fear. Our people do not fear the king. They respect him, and he respects them too. If there is a problem that is hard to solve, king Minos will always be the first to offer assistance."
"In our history, on our planet, that is quite rare. There are not a lot of remains of kings that reigned that way. Most stories are full of kings that reigned by fear and hate." Said Daniel.
"Not all the stories, Daniel. King Arthur of Camelot, for one, was loved by everyone too." Said Jack.
"You're talking about a mythical king here, Jack. And only one. I could tell you more stories about ancient tyrants than about ancient 'good guys'. Almost all the kings in our history went to war at one point during their lives."
"Daniel. Those names would fall on deaf ears with me. King Arthur of Camelot is about as far as my knowledge of ancient mythology goes."
"What about Ra, Osiris and Anubis and all the system lords we have 'met'?"
"I'm not counting those under ancient mythology. Those guys fall in the category of 'bastards' or 'dead bastards'."
Sam and Daniel chuckled, while Teal'c raised his eyebrow to signal that he had understood the joke and found it to be funny, for Earth standards. During their conversation they had almost crossed the market and were heading for a large, white building.
The building was formed in ancient Roman style, with some hits to the Greek culture. It had the form of a large rectangle, and it had pillars in front of the entrance. The main building material was a white kind of rock, possibly marble. Daniel recognised various key elements that could lead to the exact date that these people were transported from Earth. Sam recognised some elements from her old class books, and O'Neill recognised that is was a big building.
They entered the palace through a large door made of thick wood. After the door came a large hall, with a pathway leading to a door on the other end and several doors on both sides of the pathway. The pathway was flanked by several large pillars, ornately decorated with various kinds of animals of mythological beings.
They saw Pegasi, Dragons, Unicorns, Medusas, Sphinxes, Birds and a lot of other creatures. Of course, Daniel knew what place those creatures had in Greek mythology, and what the stories were around them. He noticed that there were also a lot of beings from Roman mythology.
They walked the pathway between the large, white pillars to the end, and they went to another large, wooden door. They entered a large room. It was beautifully decorated, although with not as many gold as they had seen in other throne rooms across the galaxy. This throne room was more white. The only thing missing in this throne room was the throne. There was a beautiful, large chair at the head of a long table, but the other chairs along that table were beautiful as well.
"King Minos will soon be with you." Said Tarin. "Please take a seat at the table." Then he walked away.
"Well, this is certainly one of the nicer welcomes we have had over the years. No 'bow before my almighty mights' or 'throw them in prisons' here. If they had cake, it would be perfect." Said O'Neill.
And speaking of the devil, there immediately came several servants into the room while carrying several trays with food. Not enough food for a large banquet, but more than enough to keep you occupied for a while.
"Lovely." Said O'Neill, while smiling at one of the female servants. "Do you think they heard me asking for cake?"
"Maybe? I don't know. Perhaps they just heard that there were visitors and had to put all the food on the trays?" answered Carter.
"It would indeed seem improbable that they heard you talking about cake and immediately came with food." Added Teal'c.
"I think that we could better taste this food now than waste our time discussing whether they heard me or not." Said O'Neill.
"I completely agree with you, Sir." Said Carter.
Several minutes later, the king still was not there. Daniel began to worry.
"When would king Minos be here?"
"Daniel, we'll start worrying about that when the food runs out. So sit down and relax. The people here are friendly, we get delicious food and those chairs are comfy. Enjoy it, because the times that first contact is this good are rare, considering the past few years." Said O'Neill
"But what if something has happened to their King, and they blame it on us? We're new here, and if our arrival coincides with something bad, maybe they'll blame it on us. It would not be the first time that happened, and you know that."
"Then we'll try to reason with these people. They seem to prefer talking to fighting. I didn't see a lot of guards here. Besides, we're on a diplomatic mission. They usually don't resort in us running for our lives."
They stopped their chatter as they heard and saw Tarin coming in.
"I present you, king Minos!"
"Thank you, Tarin." They heard a voice say, and they saw a figure walking into the room.