Note: This will be my Stargate oneshots, plot bunnies, omake, etc, Stargate related archive.
Part one.
Sam's choice.
Summary: This is placed in Stargate SG1, s10e20, "Unending" - the final episode. Asgard!Sam.
What if Sam had a few different ideas when her team was trapped in the dilation field?
-x-x-x-
Sam watched Teal'c administer his daily dose of tretonin and sighed.
Today was three years since her team was trapped in a dialation field to avoid destruction by an Ori mothership. If she let time return to normal, the ship would be destroyed by the Ori beam that was crawling toward the ship.
Her only idea of how to escape this fate was to somehow turn back the time in the dilation field, but she didn't even know where to begin. She had tried so many approaches, but none worked. According to Thor's hologram, it was impossible.
Sam felt despair. If an Asgard who understood this technology so well said it was impossible, how was she supposed to make it work? She would have to understand it at least as well as an Asgard, and then she would have to come up with a breakthrough that none of the highly intelligent aliens thought possible.
She knew that she was one of the best scientists Earth has, but she also knew that other species like the Goa'uld, Tok'ra or Asgard were far above her. It was true that many times she outthought them with her creativity, but they had something she did not: the accumulated knowledge of thousands of years of life, sometimes even more.
Asgard tech was so far over her understanding that she would need dozens of years to only get a basic understanding on it. To understand enough to save her team, she would need more than a lifetime.
She would need time...
Time...
Teal'c...
Tretonin!
She went to the Asgard computer and told it to make five tretonin doses.
-x-x-x-
After dinner, Sam put the five doses on the table.
"Sam?" Mitchell asked.
"This is tretonin, sir."
"Yeah, I know," Mitchell nodded glancing around the table.
"We have a problem," Sam said. "I have no idea how to get us out of this. The Asgard are so much out of my league that it could take me more than a lifetime."
"A human lifetime?" Daniel added.
"Yeah. Even if it is less than that, we would probably still be too old."
"Come on Sam," Mitchell said. "You shouldn't give up. It's been only two years."
"I'm not giving up, but at the very least, it could take me years to find a solution. When I do, I'd like us to not be too old."
"So, if we take the tretonin," Landry said, "we might still be young enough to do some good."
"Or we might spend an eternity trapped here," Jackson added helpfully.
"Each of us should think carefully about this," Landry said. "We'll sleep on it and tomorrow, we'll see."
-x-x-x-
Sam was not very surprised when she was the only one to use the tretonin. The others did not want to risk being trapped on the ship for even more than a human's normal lifetime.
Sam took the tretonin and immersed herself in Asgard science.
She discovered one thing about them. The reason they died out was not only because of their clones. As she understood it, they not only used clones as a way of achieving immortality. Ever since they adopted this way of extending their life, they also created more advanced clones. Every generation, the clones were smarter, but every generation, the clones were also having more and more genetic damage. The clones mind was powerful, but their genetic structure was not stable enough.
Even if they could have cloned a healthy original Asgard body, (as it was before they begun their cloning program), it would have still been useless. It would be the same as putting a human mind in the mind of a monkey. The less evolved brains were not capable of carrying the more advanced minds.
This was one of the reasons for their surveillance and protection of humans. They knew that humans were the ancient's second evolution. They were waiting for a human as genetically advances as an ancient. If they learned how to change a normal human with normal intelligence into an advanced ancient who had a mind even more advanced than an Asgard, they might learn how to create an advanced, stable Asgard clone.
This was because even if you have one of the primate ancestors of the human species', you can change its genetic structure to that of a modern human. If you have a human, you can change its genetic structure to that of an ancient, if you have an ancient's genetic structure.
The Asgard wanted to change their genetic structure to that of an advanced Asgard. Unfortunately, they did not know what an advanced Asgard would be. Every generation, they improved it and every generation, it had more and more genetic anomalies due to the cloning process, but also due to the fact that by every upgrade, the clone got not only a superior mind, but also even more genetic anomalies.
This is how they got to this point. The Asgard died out because the only way they could create a stable enough clone was to reduce the brain capacity of the clone. If they did that, it would be the same as putting a human mind in a monkey. It would be the same thing as having an ancient repository downloaded into Jack O'Neill's mind. The superior mind would destroy the inferior brain.
She found a few ways she could do something similar to what the Asgard did, only less drastic.
She wondered if she should do it. On the one hand, there were moral considerations, and the risk of an experimental procedure. On the other hand, if she was smarter, the chance of saving her team increased.
She would do it, but her team wouldn't like it.
She would keep it hidden.
-x-x-x-
Using what little knowledge she learned in her time at Stargate Command, (the most important being the ascension machine) and the Asgard library, she decided on what exactly she would do.
The core was very versatile: It could create anything if you had the schematics. A year later, Sam used the Asgard core to create a medical lab where she began to grow a clone of herself. If she somehow failed, she wanted to have a backup.
When the clone was fully grown, Sam copied her consciousness into the clone along with a small amount of the Asgard library. When she woke up, she put her old body in stasis. After that, she began to test her new body's knowledge. She began reading through the Asgard library. Things that were alien and incomprehensible before were now as easy as high-school science.
However, when she started to work on her time reversal idea, she was still stumped.
-x-x-x-
Decades later, Sam learned and understood a huge amount of Asgard tech, but she still found no way to reverse time in the field.
Landry died and SG1 were older. She had almost given up on her idea when she discovered the solution by mistake.
It was decided that Sam would go to the past, not Teal'c. Sam's knowledge of Asgard science and her still young body made her a better choice than the Jaffa.
-x-x-x-
Sam sighed at what she was about to do. If she managed to save the ship, she would go back to Earth. Somehow, the thought was not as happy as she expected. Her new mind made her far more intelligent than even a very intelligent human, but it also made her different. She no longer felt human. She was different - more Asgard than human. What would the SGC do when they found out she was no longer human, but a hybrid?
She was aware that her personality changed with the new body and enhancements. The others thought it was the isolation, but she knew better. She now understood how the Asgard (even Thor,) were sometimes so condescending towards humans.
She was certain her freedom would be seriously curbed. Not only because of her new DNA, but also because she was almost as intelligent as an Asgard and her new personality. She would be an invaluable resource for Earth, but would she still be human in their eyes?
For a moment, she considered transferring back into her old body, but she immediately dismissed the idea with a shudder. The old mind was so ... small. It could only think about one thing at a time and base eight math was too alien for a human mind.
She wanted to be free. No politics. No thousand of questions about what she was or about Asgard tech. She wanted to leave. But Samantha Carter must go back. If she didn't her team would worry and come for her. They will not let go to Sam. Despite her new mind, SG1 were still her friends, her family.
"Perhaps I can do both. I'll let my original body go back to Earth while I go on my way." Sam smiled, but then, frowned. "But I need the Asgard core." Sam's eyes widened in realization. The core could create anything as long as it had enough energy. "I could create another core. I can modify one of the fighters to carry it... maybe install a hyperdrive..."
Sam paled. "How could I have been so stupid? There was no need for all this! There was no need to reverse time. I could have simply used the core to build a small hypercapable ship. Then, we could have escaped on it. We would have still lost the Odyssey ... and the ZPM. Perhaps this is better..."
Sam began to design a small ship that would fit in the ships flight bay.
"Let's see," she said. "It's small, sleek, fast and maneuverable, has a small Asgard power generator, weapons, shield, cloak, engines and sensors. Beaming technology, the core ..."
Two months later, Sam smiled proudly at her new ship. She said her good byes from her friends, moved her original body to her ship, activated the devices that would protect her and her ship from the reversal of time, and then she stopped the field that protected them.
A few moments later, she was back before the field was activated and she was sitting where her original body once stood decades before.
Hours later, after the Odyssey was in normal space, safe from the Ori, she went to her small ship, and took out the original, human Sam from stasis.
"Who are you?" original Sam asked.
"I am the other you," hybrid Sam smiled sadly. "Farewell."
"What?" Original Sam disappeared in a flash of white and appeared in her quarters on Odyssey.
Hybrid Sam sat at the ships control and moved the ship out of the hangar bay. "What to do?" Sam asked herself.
"There's that planet rich in neutronium ... and I need the resources."
-x-x-x-
-x-x-x-
Omake by blackmamuth of my main SG1 fic Empress in the Shadows; polished by voider;
A'Nit opened her pack, near the command chair of the modified Tel'tak. The mission that prime Kyra entrusted her shoulders was important, not a punishment for cowardice, like some of her warrior sisters implied. Kyra had been plain. Lilith wanted a complete map of the planet, and all of its resources, not only of the immediate region around the mines and the stargate, but the entire planet.
Her sisters on the squad, instead, insisted that it was a punishment for being wounded in battle and forcing Lady Lilith to personally help her.
She was ashamed of the fact and vowed to herself to try harder in the future.
On the other hand, A'Nit knew her mission was important. Kyra had confided in the importance and several objectives of her mission. Lady Lilith wanted her to find a nice place to relocate the humans far from the mines, since according to Lady Lilith, there were some poisonous materials. The Suits her fellow techs were constructing were a start, but Lilith wanted the humans near water, and in a good spot for farming.
The second objective was to completely map the planet. Maybe find a nice island, far from the stargate a secluded location where to build a compound to store Naqahdah, and other resources.
The last objective was to survey the planet for minerals. Lady Lilith was convinced that more naqahdah deposits and heavy minerals existed, and her job was to find them using the modified Tel'tak. Chances were that those spots would be heavily underground, and a new type of mining operation would be needed in order to reach them, But A'nit was confident her Lady would find a way to access them.
Granted, the task, although important was boring, since the enhanced sensors of the Tel'tak did all of the job, and her task, was in fact, to methodically fly over the entire planet.
Time consuming, boring task.
In hindsight, perhaps Lady Lilith really was annoyed at her for damaging her armor. Well. It was better that way. If she did annoy any other god the way she annoyed Lady Lilith, she would be dead instead, so even if it was a boring job, A'nit was grateful for it.
-x-x-x-