Arrival

Author's Begiining-Note: I felt I could utilise my version of the Furling further in an Atlantis fanfic. I plan to do my best to give the Furling characters a distinct '[Stargate Atlantis]-ish feel' to them. -

A marvelous, elegant beam of pale golden-yellow light descended down into the embarkation room. A Furling who Elizabeth Weir could only recognize immediately to be the envoy Althidon himself stood in palce of the now-vanished beam, beaming with great contentment and excitement. Althidon smiled with a slight bow of his head at Elizabeth Weir, who he had respected to the utmost as a fellow diplomat.

Elizabeth Weir bowed back slightly and smiled the characteristic 'Weir-style-smile' she displayed for when she saw an old friend, ally, and colleague, after ages. "Althidon, great to be meeting face-to-face again, working with, and learning from you. A big, sincerely-meant welcome from my staff and I to the galaxy and the city."

The soon-to-be Furling Assisting-Deputy-External-Affairs Executor, a very genial-looking fellow, who was about Elizabeth's age in human years, looked Elizabeth in the eye with a bright sparkle and a look of agreement. "Elizabeth, great to see you again as well, my esteemed colleague. I'm just as equally thrilled, at the bare minimum, that your United Nations of Earth organization has allowed myself and my Pegasus Galaxy Objective Collaboration Contingent, to reside in and study in this marvelous city previously belonging to our age-long allies, the Alterrans. I find it to be just as I recall the last time I had the honor to visit it. Er, currently, pardon me for erring, that would be in what is now belonging in your very capable possession, Liz." (FN1) He glanced impressedly around the room at the Earthan personnel going about their respective daily tasks with the appearance of great competence and determination. " A whole new galaxy to be working my trade to hopefully ameliorate the living conditions for everyone in terms of not having to be constantly worrying about their mortal enemies. While I've found negotiating with the Erri to be very educational for learning diplomatic fortitude, I believe I'll

"Thanks, Althi. (FN2) We try. Well, what adventures we'll have here, too, Althidon. We may be getting outdoors and away from the Objective Headquarters more. More dramatically, we might be putting ourselves into harm's way more often, a rather rare but character-building occurrence. Negotiating with the Wraith and the . It's that aforementioned type of diplomacy which, even without Hardball Politik which rather tends to lead to disastrous consequences for the diplomats or their respective countries, or sometimes for both."

Althidon snickered at her quip. "Judging from personal, I absolutely agree. I hope our peoples, continuing in that wonderful spirit of friendship and cooperation we've been under, will experience a most fulfilling time during this collaboration. We continue to have much to learn about the Tau'ri culture too. Another goal is to end with much-enriched knowledge of each other's cultures. My senior staff should beam down at any moment now. They're engaging in last-minute preparing in order to transfer to this new setting, albeit engaging at the task too long for our tastes. Perhaps they've become " He paused to reflect on all he'd just experienced. "Well, we meet again at last, this time in a whole new galaxy full of both wonders to discover for organic-kind to honestly reap the benefits of, as well as benefit those less fortunate and less able to help themselves. Instead of dealing with the likes of those treacherous, bloodthirstily ruthless, megalomanical, insatiable Erri that I'm ashamed of being related to, we have the Wraith to contend with. These particular Wraiths, rather than the ones who drifted into our distant galaxy when their hiveship malfunctioned, are less concerned about the pyramid's second-tier of the Earth psychologist, Maslow. They exist to satisfy that tier solely. Well, hopefully, like they did "

"Splendid summary of the right aims in my opinion, Althidon. May I introduce you to my highly-capable expedition second-in-command, Colonel John Sheppard? There's no lieutenant specification in his military rank anymore, since we received news from Earth , just yesterday, that he's being promoted to a Full-Ranked Colonel."

Althidon extended his hand out to John, shaking it in the Earth fashion. "Hello to you, Colonel Sheppard, and a large congratulations from my staff and I! From what I know of Earth's United States Air Force, moving up from the rank of Lieutenant Colonel to the rank of Full Colonel is only less significant than moving up in rank from Colonel to Brigadier general. I'm very pleased to meet Dr. Weir's highly competent second-in-command finally. When Dr. Weir was away helping to negotiate with the Erri, in as much as nations may actually be able to, she left you in charge of the city and expedition and you performed phenomenally during her absence. You clearly highly-earned this recent promotion."

John Shephard, not having such a large ego, begged to differ. "Well, thanks, Althidon but Dr. Weir tends to be pretty generous in dishing out praise sometimes. I just try very hard at my career and am not competent, so I tend to do fairly well in my job. "

"Are we actually speaking of the same Elizabeth Weir, you and I Colonel Sheppard?" Althidon refuted Shephard's praise-diminishing argument with an amused chuckle, intending to refute him and make him take the credit. We both know the lady has quite high standards for leadership for herself, so perhaos she was ony being an infinitesimally small bit generous."

Sheppard non-verbally conceded he should take at least some credit for his good work.

Althdon was about to introduce Arindol Dree to an impatiently-waiting Rodney McKay. A larger-sized luminous beam appeared instantaneously to deposit a group of important-looking Furlings all dressed in what looked like some form of military garb. Sheppard being foremostly in his career path a military man, ventured the guess they were most likely from different services or sub-services of the Furling armed forces.

"Ah, and now the tardy ranking military officers have arrived-wonderful"Althidon commented with a not-unkind smirk. "Well, it's an opportune time to for me to make some introductions amongst all of our peoples who will be working together in this city."

A certain Earthan personnel didn't spare his Furling counterpart the unpleasantness of having to experience the self-promotion alleged greatness of his self-evaluated professional ability. He'd decided he was going to cut off "Rodney MacKay, head of the overall scientific department, MIT physics Ph.D. graduate summa cum laude, , MIT Science Club Vice-President, former CalTech non-tenured Full Professor, former official of the American Physical Society and the International Union of Physics and Chemistry, one of the most skilled if not the most skilled Earth scientists, expert in all natural sciences and technologies ancient, especially those found in the Pegasus Galaxy. I just recently won my two of the four Nobel prizes, the other two will follow soon. " He rambled these self-aggrandizing credentials on at an amazing speed which the Earth personnel knew of one human, Daniel Jackson, who could match and/or comprehend.

*Damn it, Rodney—now is the wrong time with the wrong peoples to be ignorantly expressing, well, ignorant opinions.* John hissed mentally.

Arindol smiled politely, because that's what he thought everyone would expect him to do, following the protocols of politeness, which he felt very prudent to follow right now. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Dr. McKay. I look forward to working with you and learning from your great wisdom developed over all these years about the Pegasus galaxy's scientific and technological wonders." He'd heard of this infamously arrogant physicist and scientific research administrator Rodney McKay before he even set foot in the Pegasus Galaxy this time. Now, he'd met lots of arrogant fellow scientists in his lifetime who'd be nobles and whose noble rank in the imaginary Egotistia Kingdom would be quite high. He'd be an Archduke, perhaps, or maybe even a Prince. Or perhaps a short-lived Emperor would me more accurate.

"Rodney-I go by just Rodney, well I mean at least I do for those who are as equally prominently prominent in a scientific field or their own field. And that includes you, I'm assuming—because this is such a mission of astronomically magnitudinous importance that the Furling wouldn't exactly send their most incompetent scientist to head their scientific component, don't you think? So therefore, I can safely assume you're far from being an idiot, if you know what I mean? And I'm never wrong, well in all forthrightness, I'm ever-so-rarely wrong."

Elizabeth mentally screamed in horrified frustration. She hoped Rodney would be making this socially-

"I'm inclined to agree, Rodney" Arindol replied very tongue-in-cheek. "And thank you for the great compliment as well." Inwardly though, he'd thought up of a much less polite response which he felt this arrogant physicist named Rodney McKay deserved to hear. To his credit, he refrained from using it though.

"Colonel Sheppard; -John, I present you to who would be your counterpart, Commander Aeson[ ] of the Furling Republic's Aerial-Spacial Fightercraft Service, or, for shorter reference, ASFCS. A very capable leader, gifted pilot, and special-operations-experienced craft-affiliated infantryelf. Very modest, approachable elfman too."

"Aeson, always a pleasure to meet a fellow pilot. I've gotta tell you I feel extremely envious that Furling pilots like yourself " John extended his hadn to Aeson energetically.

"Thank you, Colonel. Hopefully you'll find I can actually fly a craft well enough to not get in your way and also help a bit." Aeson took Sheppard's hand in a firm grip and shrugged off the high praise like Sheppard had earlier.

"Think you'll perform just damned fine, Commander." Sheppard appraised his modest charge. 'I've read through your service files several times and unless it's lying, I know you;ve done some pretty damned amazing things."

"You do say, eh? You shouldn't believe everything you hear " Aeson cautioned.

"True, true; quite true my friend. I believe that whatever those aforementioned files indicated positive about your career are true and that what the files mentioned to be negative about your career are false. I find that a good rule fo thumb to use." He shrugged amnd smirked.

"Have you ever seen such an immense city, Arindol? I mean, people like us, you and I, can't even fathom what " McKay seemed to forget just whom he was making this claim to."

*Damn it, Rodney—now is the wrong time with the wrong peoples to be ignorantly expressing, well, ignorant opinions.* John hissed to himself mentally.

"Ehhhh, Rodney? You do realize that you're making this claim to, of all beings, a Furling—contemporaries and technoligcally-equal allies of the Ancients? I think your claim doesn't hold at all and might be very offensive in an ignorant way." Zelenka objected to Rodney's statement. Radek looked towards Weir for her to try and resolve this McKay's potentially Furling-infuriating statement. After all, Elizabeth's expertise was communicating to rectify misunderstandings cordially and thus she was just the person present to do so.

"Um, I ask that my Furling friends please pardon Dr. McKay's unintended misassessment of your peoples' technological capabilities. Rodney tends to lose himself when he gets carried away with experiencing the splendor of such high technology as elder raceslike the Ancients, and the Furling, constructed." Liz tried to ameliorate the nature of McKay's potenitally offending remarks.

"That's quite alright; I'm sure Dr. McKay meant not a single bit of offense. You yourself, Dr, Dree, have become carried away on several occasions when encoutnering new revolutionary technolgies, no?" Althidon tried to defuse the situation.

"I can't say I haven't" Arindol forced himself to state and to chuckle in addition. *Although I don't forget who I'm proclaiming my wonderment to in the process iIshould emphasize!* he commented mentally.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry, Dr. Dree. I can be extremely insensitive sometimes." Meredith Rodney McKay apologized, an extremely, extremely rare action to take for him.

Footnotes

FN1: Elizabeth Weir sometimes goes by Liz. Presumably of course only with her closest friends. She counts Envoy Althidon as one of her closest friends. Earth sent Weir on a diplomatic mission to assist Althidon negotiate with the Furlings' mortal archenemy, the Erri, who are an offshoot of their once unfiied race, like the Vanir to the Asgard or the Ori to the Ancients. She succeeded, using her unique diplomatic talents in concert with Althidon's unique diplomatic talents.

FN2: Althidon uses the nickname Althi with his closest friends, of who he counts Elizabeth Weir as one. He highly respects her diplomatic skills, as he alone, despite dissuading the Erri an amazing partway from continuing along their then-diabolical scheme, couldn't dissaude them full way by himself.