A/N: I'm not exactly familiar with the Stargate lore, so I'll be writing this based on the wiki and scripts a lot of the time, but I do know that the ninth chevron is unused except in SG-U. Here is my retake starting from pretty much the first scene of the Stargate series. Let's put it this way: even though Jackson became a multi-spectrum genius later, at the beginning he was most certainly NOT.
I use Stargate Wiki instead of the original Stargate movie date (which would put Stargate: The Movie and events beginning in 1988). I wondered how to give West time to retire and hand things over to Hammond without it being completely insane. He's only in his 50s FFS, not nearly old enough to be allowed to retire after 2 short years, supposedly 1995 to 1997, during which the Stargate was first activated and contact made with Abydos… It's not like he was said to have had a heart attack or something either. However, I figured it out…
XX
Chapter 1: This Thing Came Pre-Dialled?
SG Earth, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, November 25, 1996
Two weeks after Daniel Jackson's hiring, and Jack O'Neill's reactivation…
O'Neill was on the verge of SCREAMING. Hell, he'd almost taken up his old smoking habit again, even though the last time he saw Charlie before his accident—that thought brought a lump to his throat that helped stifle his desire to scream at the imbecile in front of him—had his son asking him to quit smoking.
As for WHY he was about to scream, with such an adverse reaction he was considering violating his son's last request… the man in front of him had just said "And uh… to find a destination within any three dimensional space, you need six points to determine the exact location." Charlie would probably be screaming too if he heard what this man was spouting.
I swear, if this is the best we can find to translate this thing, it probably would dial into a black hole or something. He's good at Egyptian studies but general science? THREE is enough for a 3D coordinate, and another THREE for point of origin. He scribbled down, then showed the note to Myers and West.
"You said you needed seven points." General West prompted after glancing at O'Neill and nodding with his eyes.
"Well, no, six for the destination. But to chart a course, you need a point of origin." Jackson said drawing a point some distance from the cube and then a line to where all the cube points intersected.
O'Neill's eyes watered slightly as he gazed upon the sheer stupidity of the suggested travel system. Surely, SURELY, the man had to realize that such an idea required one symbol per Stargate if each symbol identified a unique point of origin? Also, if the gateway was anything like they suspected (O'Neill had only been there for two weeks and it was already pretty damned obvious), a wormhole generator linking to another gateway, then surely there would be (at least) one placed on every habitable planet?
"Except there's only six symbols in the cartouche." Myers said.
"Well, the seventh actually isn't inside the cartouche, it's just below it, here designated by a little pyramid with two funny neat little guys and funny little line coming out of the top."
You sure that isn't just a symbol that shows the thing has turned on? O'Neill thought. Admittedly, maybe it can vary between planets, or maybe between coordinate sectors, but the actual coordinates are surely more important than just a planetary or sector identification icon…
The sad fact of the matter was that, while Daniel Jackson was an expert linguist, archaeologist, etc. Jack O'Neill was actually much more competent at the maths and sciences, at least at the moment. Jack also happened to be completely right.
Well, it was time for another activation test…
…
…
Oh hey, it… wait…
The eighth and ninth chevrons were pre-dialled?
Cutting the power wasn't working?
Uh oh…
…
Hey, it actually looks like it worked! Wow!
…
And the drone's data…
…
…
What… the… fuck…
"I guess it wasn't X, Y, Z, and then X, Y, Z again like you were suggesting with that cube." Myers said as the probe looked up to see a night sky identical to Earth's night sky, then looked around to see… uh… the gateway on the other side looked rather different… "It was X, Y, Z for the origin, then again for the destination, or maybe the other way around, and then the seventh symbol was probably a coordinate system code, possibly for sector or galactic identification? The eighth and ninth chevrons probably were galactic clusters, or even universes for the ninth, if we accept that, then what we're seeing is plausible… HOLY CRAP!"
XX
SC Earth, Black Sun Base, May 25, 3860
Dominic Maddox scratched his head as he looked closely on his monitor at the tiny, primitive scout drone that had just come through the Quantum Gate placed where the Quantum Rift had previously been. It was aimed on by over a hundred Aeon Salvation-class artillery pieces, a hundred Mavors, over a thousand strategic warheads all the way up to the mighty and absurdly expensive (when one wasn't warping the missiles in from the Quantum Realm, building them on-site cost an obscene amount of Mass and Energy due to the yield and effectiveness of anti-missiles and the Yolona Oss's specifications demanding surviving the first anti-missile hit) Seraphim Yolona Oss class, and a veritable orbiting army of Soul Ripper Gunships, with a swarm of CZARs parked higher up over the area providing air superiority and staging for the fleets of ASFs (Air Superiority Fighters).
As for why the Gate had even been built at a known weak spot between universes, it was just in case the Seraphim Republic's suspicions about things being too easy were validated. If the Imperium sent more attackers through by somehow exploiting any residues of the Quantum Rift, they were more than ready. If they wanted to talk, well… It wasn't as if the Seraphim had burnt any other human worlds, hell almost all the casualties not brought back to life were due to Order or QAI-aligned collaborators deploying Psi Disruptors. It was known that the Seraphim had gained the technology long before the tide turned, so… why did they not deploy it…?
Dominic rubbed his eyes, then hailed his comrades Ivan Brackman and Thalia Kael to ask why the hell this probe did not even have a structural field as it rolled out onto the slowly reviving island of Niihau. Anything that could dial a Coalition Quantum Gateway should have a structural field… hell, how did it even survive gating without one?
XX
Universe known to SC Humans as the Quantum Realm…
The Seraphim Imperium leadership practically hummed with joy at the knowledge that the gift they'd left the humans of one universe, one which they had left due to curiosity at what would happen without their interference, had been activated, linking together the humans of the two universes. Perhaps the next time they made contact with those from the universe their species was originally born from, they could do so peacefully, instead of testing their mettle while pushing the dissidents of the Imperium into joining them, to share most technologies of the Seraphim with them. All had gone more or less according to plan.
Though they hadn't pushed the humans from their original (as far as Seraphim evolutionary studies could see) home universe nearly as much as they'd wanted to, at least they knew that they would have worthy allies against what their contemporary race referred to as "Reapers". It was too bad the "Prothean" fools had decided to follow a scavenger's path instead of striking out on their own technologically as the Seraphim chose and survived through, but the past was the past. The Imperium, which was actually a Psionic Direct Democracy, but kept the old name as a historical joke against the Protheans, would end the cycle… oh yes…
…
…
…Dammit, they were getting collectively infected by that old human's verbal tic!
Well, it would be good to have the chance to see their old friends again too. Hopefully the Asgard and Nox at least were doing well, even if the Nox attitude toward domineering control freaks severely pissed the Seraphim people off. The Way came about partly due to Nox influence, tinted with restraint instead of the ludicrous Nox fundamentalism, but the point remained well enough that it would be good to see their old allies—during their relatively brief stay in that universe before escaping to their current one—again.
Hopefully the Asgard hadn't cloned themselves to extinction yet. Why they'd give up having sex, the Seraphim would never understand. Sex was a means to prevent DNA degradation, everyone knew that… or should if they were advanced enough to even HAVE cloning!
For the record, the only reason they went under the codename of "Furling" in their old alliance was because they were the only race of the four that did not have fur. Originally it should have been "Furry", as in whatever the other side had as their term for fur, made into an adjective, but the Alterans had informed them of the fact that the three other races all had (or used to have in the case of the Asgard) fetish porn by that label… so it was changed. The irony and chance to troll literally everyone who understood what fur was in their language was too funny to pass up, but association with a specific fetish that the Seraphim certainly did not fit (horny or scaly on the other hand…) was decided to be worth avoiding.
What was even funnier was the balance of weapons and defensive techs. Asgard tech, originally gleaned from leavings of the Alterans' old and/or personal energy weapons, was likely to be reasonably effective against structural field tech. The Seraphim had originally learnt structural field tech from humans in their home universe, at least enough to reverse engineer (and hadn't that been a doozy, to learn from a much younger race…) before that contact went bad. Alteran drones on the other hand would be almost completely useless thanks to structural integrity fields being able to splatter them against the outer hulls with stupid ease unless field strength was extremely depleted, and even that would wear out the drone power supply very quickly.
Hopefully the humans would end up friends with the Asgard, because the last time the Seraphim met them they did NOT part on good terms, despite Seraphim efforts to the contrary while still keeping up the ruse. Intervening to broker diplomacy between the two sides would be… inconvenient, if not impossible. Perhaps they should have learnt better from their neighbours on the art of manipulating younger races… even if their neighbours were only peripherally aware they even existed and were completely taken in by their stealth systems hiding their actual ability level. The Seraphim had no intention of engaging the Vorlons in another rendition of the Vorlon-Shadow Great Debate, particularly because they'd probably scare the old stagnant ones into committing suicide, more or less. They'd already come close enough when they first arrived in this universe.
The idea of enlisting the local races in the Seraphim's current universe as allies against the Reapers back home… that was at best thoroughly laughable. At worst could result in all of the locals being exterminated by Seraphim forces because neither the Vorlons nor the Shadows would be pleased by interference in their long debate and would throw the younger races at them. Certainly, the Minbari fusion lances, like a certain faction's plasma projectors from their home galaxy, could easily sweep Seraphim battleships from the sky at close enough range to actually hit them semi-reliably, but that was well within the range of the more agile Seraphim warships whose stealth concerns were far less when not fighting in or through atmosphere. Continuous beam weapons were still an effective counter for structural fields and Seraphim shielding systems, so they wouldn't hold up long against such overcharged weapons.
However, with thousands of stealthy vessels and FTL jammers (they also learnt Quantum Jump Jamming from the humans), the Seraphim fleet could annihilate with ease any known faction except the hated Reapers and the human-founded Coalition, who could match them in numbers and thus had their respect. Even if the humans were assholes over a thousand of their years ago, the Seraphim of today acknowledged full well that the contact had gone sour due to a few loose cannons, and then they'd pushed the humans too hard too fast after to test their mettle. Instead of an ally against the Reapers' inevitable return, they'd had to pull off the greatest hoax in Seraphim history before the recent invasion to convince the Earth Empire to not get themselves killed off.
However, the retaliation against the humans had borne fruit, as their stealth technologies and sensors were now far better than before, even when reverse engineered to a comparatively rudimentary level. They learnt from the humans that a 120-meter walker with tens of thousands of tons of mass could run around on the ground at well over an eighth the speed of sound, and remain utterly undetected until a measly four kilometers to their very best ground-to-ground sensor suites deployed. They originally learnt this to their grave dismay when trying to plan for the invasion to evaluate the humans again and to provide dissidents with an easy out… they learnt it for real when they actually went there and found the estimates true. They understood that the humans had similar sensory problems, but Seraphim stealth tech was nowhere near as good as, say, those Cybrans among the humans. Sure, it was enough to keep the Vorlons out by force if need be, and thanks to the distraction of the Shadows the Vorlons had refrained from being nosy enough to actually start a war, after the initial contact hissy fit…
XX
A/N: The Asgard materialize their hulls from the basic elements that make up the structure. The problem is that the Coalition manufactures its units from raw mass, which is a step up. The only barrier now is to discover whether or not they can manufacture naquadah, its counterpart in their universe, element zero, and the counterpart in the other universe the Seraphim currently inhabit, namely Quantium-40. If they can, and they probably will figure out a way since it's raw MASS-ENERGY after all… the Seraphim and SC humans will be the most OP races in any crossovers I would write (e.g. not harnessing the energy of universes or even galaxies at will level OP) because any higher and they wouldn't scale properly against others.
In any one-on-one fight, expect an Asgard ship to win handily against a Coalition ship of equal size, regardless of tech tree. The Seraphim Republics don't have the full tech of the Seraphim Imperium, but they have enough to show the issues with the Imperium systems compared to Asgard systems. The only problem is that the Imperium, like the Coalition, doesn't come in any number but MANY.
As for Babylon 5 units, well, to be honest a fighter from that universe would not survive one good hit from a reasonably sized railgun, and the Linked Railgun is the weakest AA weapon in the UEF arsenal… hence why the Seraphim are lying low, as they could give the Vorlons a collective heart attack otherwise.
XX
SG Earth, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, November 25, 1996
"How is it getting so much power?" Myers asked, picking at his ears to make sure he wasn't hearing wrong.
"…We don't know, sir, but for some reason the wormhole appears completely stable, and the rover believes it is on Earth from the constellations… but we are getting no signals from the rover's tracking system anywhere except through the gate." The technician repeated what he just said, feeling the words upon his tongue as if he himself could not believe it.
"Perhaps nine chevrons are needed to dial another universe?" O'Neill immediately suggested the most ridiculous thing he could think of.
"…Anyone got any cookies?" Myers said loudly after a moment of quiet. He'd never expected this dead-end assignment, chucked at him after he beat one too many important people in card games too badly would get quite this fantastical… "We need some for Jack's overly reasonable answer… and a sinking feeling I have that he's right!"
For the record, Myers got a relaxing dead-end assignment precisely because he managed to uphold the honour of the United States at numerous cooperative military exercises by being too damned good at poker and other card games for his own good. It would be embarrassing to give him too bad of an assignment, but they did have to put him away politically, exactly as Myers had intended when he destroyed the other nations' generals and admirals in those games. As a side note, Myers was still banned from the casinos of Las Vegas for the most part (with a few exceptions under which he would be allowed in).
"Would ginger snaps from rations do?" West suggested.
Myers shrugged "…Depends on Jack's opinion of whether they are cookie enough for him."
XX
SC Earth, Black Sun Base, May 25, 3860
Slightly after the previous scene…
"Would you mind not setting up that nuclear warhead you brought?" Ivan Brackman was not exactly the Coalition's leading diplomat, to say the least, when he blared that over speakers from a row of Loyalists standing by in front of the Quantum Gate. This was after observing a group of morons travel through the gate without structural fields or even a Psi-shield up. How the hell did they survive the transition without having almost every bone in their body broken, if the scans indicating 20th century baseline human physiology was correct? "Earth in this universe is just recovering from being reduced to a Tomb World sixteen years ago."
O'Neill looked around in alarm as Jackson practically jumped a foot in the air after he woke to that loud broadcast out of thin air. Only the building they'd come out from, which looked VERY different from their Stargate, was visible. "Who am I speaking to?"
There was a distinctly female sigh "Dominic, Ivan, they can't see our welcoming committee with Active Camo up!"
"Huh… oh, I forgot to turn it off for the greeting party." A second male voice said out of nowhere…
…
…
O'Neill stared.
Jackson stared.
The soldiers with them stared.
…
…
"The Quantum Gate Network registered an incoming attempt at making a connection from another universe. This is the only Gate Complex that would allow such a transfer as it has adequate security around it. Please explain how you came to be here, we're curious and would like to be friendly if at all possible despite the security we have here, the only site in the Gate Network that can allow inter-universal reception." The first male voice to greet them said.
This was partly a lie as Roanoke Abyss was a well-known inter-universal transition weak spot. But as for sites actually tied in with Quantum Gates that wouldn't shunt any incoming extra-universal signal away, this was in fact it.
"I'm guessing it's not 1996 AD in your universe?" O'Neill contemplated loudly.
XX
A/N: TO PUT SUPCOM TECH IN PERSPECTIVE…
An Energy Storage Structure in Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance holds 2000 units of energy. However, the most efficient mass fabricators can convert 150 energy into 1 mass every second. That's 2 tons of mass (estimated using the tank and bot sizes at a sane density instead of being less dense than water), which means it consumes about 180,000,000,000,000,000,000, also written as 1.8 x 10^20 joules per second if we go by just mass-energy equivalency. This gives us 1.2 x 10^18 joules per unit energy (1 gigaton TNT equivalent is 4.184 x 10^18 J, corresponding to 46.55 kg of mass), or 2.4 x 10^21 J per Energy Storage structure (about 600 GT TNTe, which is in shouting range of the 875 GT estimated yield of the last eruption of the Yellowstone super-volcano). Now, unless that's antimatter being contained in there, in which case each structure needs to hold 26.702 TONS of ANTIMATTER, I do NOT see that sort of energy density happening.
The only way I can circumvent making one unit of energy ludicrously huge is to take a shortcut and insist that it's a matter of containment field energy when drawing entropy from the universe by cheating the laws of physics. At the boundary between parallel universes, the law that entropy must always increase does not apply when close enough to the transition. This is how they obtain such obscene amounts of mass for so little energy. The Tier 3 Mass Fab is less efficient because it draws in more mass, and thus requires a much stronger containment field. The Paragon is much better than even that, because it harvests both mass AND pure energy to fuel itself. I want to nerf it to be slightly less insane, but 10,000 Mass and 1,000,000 energy at max output is equal to 800 Tier 3 Mass Fabs plus 400 Energy Generators, which altogether cost about 50% more mass than the Paragon, nerfing it to any significant extent would make it not worthwhile to even try to build the paper building with only 5000 HP. It can be completely annihilated by a CZAR landing on it and atomizing the wreckage with the structural fields during the crash, before the saucer's systems finally fry!
The UEF structure's visible capacitor (by whatever means, chemical or pure energy) volume is abou meters per column with 4 columns, in base area, the whole structure beginning at a height of (eyeballed) 26 meters, growing to about 38m for volume 144 x 12 = 1728 cubic meters. The Cybrans' capacitor part is 18 x 12 - 64 - 8 = 144 square meters in base area if you want to be picky about the areas of the columns' central guide columns (uncertain if they're supposed to go all the way down through the capacitors). It starts off with the upper surface of the capacitor area 3 meters off the ground and finishes at about 22m, for capacitor volume estimated at 2736 cubic meters. The Seraphim stores their energy in spheres no more than 4 meters across, with 3 beads, for a volume of 100 cubic meters (I'll be generous and make allowances for extra capacitors in the containment prongs and say only 1500 energy is in the beads). The Aeon uses a capacitor volume at most about 200 square meters by 7 meters for 1400 cubic meters.
I don't think I need to explain how cramming 27 tons of antimatter into a containment field of that volume is NUTS. The detonation if you destroy one really isn't very strong, which precludes that idea unless, when under attack, the storage either sends almost all its stored energy away, or reclaims and refabricates just about all of it from antimatter to normal matter and adds it to, say, the top of the hull.
Oh, and the Psionics used by the Aeon are strong enough that Princess Rhianne, by use of some level of Ascension, can seal a many-kilometers-long Quantum Rift between universes, or with Black Sun's help brainwash every single human near the Quantum Gate Network (all the trillions of them) into giving up fighting the Infinite War, regardless of shielding equipment and Psi Disruptors. Xavier Fran is more than a few decades older and more experienced than Rhianne, though a few tiers down in raw power. He can still probably rip the soul right out of anyone short of an Ori with casual ease if they don't have any sort of countermeasures running. Thalia Kael is nowhere near so good.
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