Dial It Up!, a stargate: sg-1 fanfic

The wormhole burst open, the silver blue light shooting out. A second slipped by and then the four people stepped out, Jack O'Neill leading the way, followed by Daniel and Sam and lastly, taking up the rear, Teal'c.

"Who'd have thought….it's the woods," sighed Jack. "Just once I'd like a nice swamp."

"Colonel look!" Sam pointed. A face was peering out at them from behind some trees.

"Don't be afraid!" called out Daniel, "We're explorers, we mean you know harm."

The face was followed by the rest of the man, but he was frowning, perplexed. He said something.

"That wasn't English…." said O'Neil, frowning.

The man repeated it.

"Is it perchance derived from some ancient earth language which has not been spoken for hundreds of years and many earth scholars disagree on pronunciation but you can muddle through alright, Daniel Jackson?" asked Teal'c raising an eyebrow.

Daniel thought about it. "No…actually it sounds like French."

"Can you speak it?" asked Carter.

"No….I only study the dead ones."

"Well we're out of here," declared O'Neil. "Carter! Dial up another planet! No point hanging around here. I'm sure they'll speak English on the next one!"

"Much better! No woods! Much more open," said Jack beaming. "Alrighty! Carter, what does your little radar say?"

Sam looked down at her hand held radar. "There's no sign of any major life within a five mile radius sir. All life signs which look like small woodland animals but that's it."

"Alright…" Jack took a deep breath of the air. "Dial up another one."

"Jack, just because there's no life in the immediate vicinity doesn't mean there's none at all anywhere here. This is a whole giant planet. We should at least take a look around so we have something to report, then we can send some scouts in later to search further," pointed out Daniel.

"Nah. Let SG-7 do that. We're SG-1. We're the founding members! We don't have to waste time on planets that have no immediate villages. Dial it up Carter!"

"Oh….it's a rain forest. Back in the worm hole!"

"What's wrong with rain forests?" demanded Daniel

"We don't do jungles, duh. Have you ever seen us in a jungle?"

They were in a huge broad square. Skyscrapers reached up into the sky towering overhead, between them flying cars zoomed. Giant turrets were mounted on the side of buildings, taking random pot shots in the air, just to show they could.

A woman was standing feet away from the Stargate. She looked surprised but happy to see them. She approached them.

"Welcome!" she said, spreading out her arms. "Welcome travelers to our home."

"See," said Jack turning to Daniel. "English. Told you so."

"I'm Dr. Samantha Carter. You city is beautiful."

"Thank you."

"It seems very advanced," said Jack, eyeing one turret that had just blown a passing pigeon out of the sky.

"We are. And we would be happy to share what we know."

"Come again?"

"We believe in sharing our knowledge with all races who ask. We believe through openness and sharing we can create peace and preserve it in the universe."

"…" Jack turned to Carter. "Dial it up."

Sam headed for the DHD.

"You're going?" asked the woman surprised.

"Look lady, if there's one thing we've learned," said Jack, "There are only two types of people with advanced technology; those who say they want to share it but are secretly evil amd those who don't want to share it because they want us to jump through hoops for a couple more centuries. We're outa here."

"But-"

Woosh. The wormhole opened.

They were in a village. There was a nice little market, nice little huts, a couple of nice little goats and nice little potted plants scattered here and there. People were staring at them mouths agape.

"Now this looks more like it," said Jack. He approached the man wearing the biggest hat. "Hi. I'm Jack."

The man beamed at him. "Forgive out amazement. It is truly wonderful to meet you, but we have never had any had anything happen with GRA before."

"GRA?"

"Great Round Arch."

"Oh of course….but no doubt you have lots of legends about Gods coming through there."

"Never. We just thought it was nothing but a great round arch."

"Oh you did?"

"Well you can't really blame us. It looks like a great round arch and it acts like a great round arch. And as my people say, if it looks like a great round arch and it acts like a great round arch then it probably is-"

"A great round arch."

"Exactly!"

"….you have any visitors come down from the sky?"

"No."

"Ah then you must have terrible legal system, arresting strangers at the drop of a hat."

"Never! We rate our legal system very highly. Each party is represented by a lawyer, if they cannot afford a lawyer one is appointed for them by the court. And every case is judged by a jury of twelve fairly elected people."

"All men I'm guessing? Women left at home to cook?"

"No," the man sighed sadly, "I admit 300 years ago that was the case. But then we saw the error of our ways, gave them the right to vote and now we are all truly treated equal and try to live down our past mistakes."

Jack frowned and thought long and hard for a full five minutes. "You've been fighting any neighboring villages for any significant amount of time?"

"No, we get on quite well with them actually."

"Have any mysterious ruins nearby or legends of strange lights in the sky that appear every eon or so?"

"No."

"How about your village leaders? Fairly elected?"

"We vote them into or out of office every year and have strict rules to make sure it is all fairly done."

"Any weird illnesses? Rapid aging? Robots with unusually realistic human personalities?"

"No, no and no."

"Infestation of rabbits?" Jack asked hopelessly.

"No we are really quite happy. Though now that you mention it, we do have a bit of a caterpillar problem at the moment, they've been playing havoc with this year's cabbage crops."

Jack looked doubtful for a moment. He sighed. "Alright...we've got to do something. Teal'c, go see how those caterpillars feel about staff weapons."

They trudged slowly down the gangway. General Hammond met them at the bottom.

"How was your mission Colonel?"

"Great. We dealt with some caterpillars. We were successful, though some of the villages thought it might have been done with a few less explosives."

Hammond blinked. "Ah…well uh…debrief in ten minutes."

"Yes General." Jack started to walk out of the room.

"Oh and O'Neil….you have a dead caterpillar in your hair."

"….what don't we make that twenty minutes?"