Jump Chain Gothic 4 - Confederation
Part 2
Annwn. Milky Way Galaxy.
The probe showed that the majority of this world's surface was covered by idyllic woodlands, groves of fruit trees and large fertile plains, and in the distance there were vast oceans full of salt water. There were also a large number of lakes fed by rivers which flowed from the high mountain ranges that I was sure would be a challenge for even the most experienced mountaineers.
"Looks like a nice world" I said as I looked at the images currently being displayed on a 2d screen "But why I am seeing it?".
Cortana, an AI from the Mass Effect verse that lived inside my omni-tool much like how some sea creatures lived inside a shell, was showing me these images, and she must have a good reason to.
"Keep watching" Cortana instructed.
I did as she wished as soon I saw what was clearly a settlement of some kind, and it was full of humans, which wasn't so odd as there were human societies all over the galaxy, however none of them had the fucking swastika as their symbol.
"Oh my lord, they're space nazis!" I shouted.
Cortana was handling this far more calmly than I was. Which was hardly surprising since she couldn't be shocked and for her the Nazis were ancient history were as for me they were far more recent, and I'd studied them well so I knew the sort of things the Nazis had gotten up to.
"I was connected to the probe we sent through and I was able to access their computers" the AI told me.
Our new probes, which were my group's version of a MALP, were round objects about the size of a beach ball, and they had a dozen different technologies inside them from a few different universes. They floated around while invisible, and recorded everything they saw. Cortana could link to them while the gates were open, taking control of the devices.
"Himmel was first visited by the Tau'ri in 1939, when a Nazi expedition went through the Stargate. These first German explorers named the planet "Himmel", the German word for "Heaven", due to it's breathtaking beauty. To them it's an idyllic paradise with abundant natural resources".
As far as I knew neither of Earth's gates had ever been under Nazis control, in fact the alpha gate, the one found need Giza, had been brought to the United States in order to keep it out of German hands in case it was some sort of weapon. Now it seemed that the Americans must have stolen it from the Nazis at some point.
"Like Abydos this world is close to Earth so it wasn't affected by stellar drift enough to become impossible to dial to without a DHD" Cortana was now saying "The Germans discovered the planet was controlled by creatures with dark serpents in their hearts".
Well that didn't sound good.
"Later records say that Himmel was controlled by the System Lord Nirrti, who used the planet as one of her Jaffa breeding worlds. While the gate was under their control the Nazis the sent an army and a lot of equipment through the gate and fought against Nirrti's forces".
By the looks of things they'd won, however the Nazis must have have sent a lot of men and resources through the gate in order to overwhelm the Jaffa.
"The Battle of Heaven was long and bloody but eventually the Nazis took control" Cortana told me "and began to build a colony on the planet".
She still had more to tell me.
"Himmel now has a population of thousands of "perfect" men and women" Cortana let me know "and since the colony never existed in any official record and because the colony was cut off from the Fatherland they don't even know that they lost World War II".
Since they'd never returned to Earth I figured they'd never figured out how to. Perhaps they'd not been able to torture the information out of any of the Jaffa.
"Their computers aren't that advanced" the AI let me know "And while they'd got some Jaffa weapons, which they've modified into some of rifle, most of their stuff is still circa late 1930's".
I had a thought.
"What about the gate?" I asked.
My thinking was that further recon might be required.
"The gate was defended in the past" Cortana said next.
She showed me images of pillboxes, a type of blockhouse, or concrete dug-in guard post, normally equipped with loopholes through which to fire weapons. Only these pillboxes didn't contain machine guns they contained staff cannons. However they weren't manned so clearly the gate hadn't been used for some time.
"So how do you want to handle this, boss" Cortana
I took some time to think. There was much to consider. While these people were Nazis they were confined to this world and weren't harming anyone else. Perhaps it would be best to simply leave them be.
"We do nothing" I finally decided.
Really I had enough to do without getting involved in this.
"Lock out the gate address" I ordered Cortana "We'll leave them alone".
As much as I didn't like Nazis I didn't want to get involved with this group of them unless I really had to. Best to leave them be.
(Line Break)
Annwn. Milky Way Galaxy.
Like she had on the Aurora-class, Tali had taken over part of the city-ship so that she could have a workshop. Actually she had a few workshops, this was just the largest and it was here that she worked on the Delta Flyer. Which she had taken as her own ship.
This wasn't a big deal as they could always build another Delta Flyer, and while the ship was small, it was very powerful for its size, and this made it suitable as a test bed for new technology. Currently Tali was reconfiguring the craft for speed, firepower and defence, meaning that it didn't need a cloaking device.
She was preparing the vessel for a space race called the Loop of Kon Garat, which was a yearly event. Should she win it would bring positive attention to the Confederation, and open up further business opportunities with the massive corporation that sponsored the race.
The Loop of Kon Garat was a historic and widely popular Hebridian race, taking ships through the Hebridan solar system. The race was open to anyone, and the rules are few. The winner's ship must arrive at the finish line first and intact.
The Loop consists of four distinct phases:
STAGE ONE: DEFENSE
In this stage, ships must navigate through a densely packed armada of propulsion-capable disabling drones, capable of firing bursts of plasma energy at ships. The objective is to avoid the fire of these weapons, as they severely drain the power systems of the shields. Once the shields are penetrated, a vessel can be disabled and is disqualified from the race. This first stage is very successful at weeding out many competitors from proceeding further.
STAGE TWO: NAVIGATION
This stage takes ships through the Hebridan sun's chromosphere, causing intermittent failure in communication and navigation. The sun emits deadly levels of radiation, which can be partially repelled by lowering the deflector doors of windows and other outer barriers. If a ship becomes disabled in this layer, it is not long before the gravity well of the sun causes serious navigational issues.
STAGE THREE: MANEUVERABILITY
This stage of the race consists of billions of magnificent ice crystals, some the size of micro-fragments, and others the size of the Hebridean capital. The goal is simple - prevent the destruction of your vessel. Easy maneuverability is a must in the stage of this course in order to avoid the gargantuan rocks that cause navigational difficulties and are quite lethal if struck.
STAGE FOUR: SPEED
The last stage of the Loop is a dead sprint to the finish line. It comes down to the pilot with the most advanced and energized power source wired into his or her system to successfully reach the finish line before any other ship. As there are no rules, ships are allowed to buffett, and even fire upon, one another to achieve first place.
Tali was keeping all this in mind while she modified the ship, soon it would be ready, and then all she would have to do was decide on a co-pilot. Which in her mind was going to be the hard part.
(Line Break)
Annwn. Milky Way Galaxy.
If anyone had asked I'd have happily admitted that Miranda Lawson was very good at her job. She knew how to sort things out so that I only had to deal with the things that only I could deal with, while she dealt with all the other stuff. At some point was going to have to find her an aid so she had someone to sort through the crap for her.
"So what did you want to bring my attention to?" I asked her.
Before speaking Miranda sent a file to my omni-tool. I would read it in full later, for now the former Cerberus operative would give me an idea of what was going on.
"Tagrea, designated P3X-744 by the Tau'ri, is a planet about 294 lightyears from Earth, which was once under Heru'ur's domain and its part of the Stargate network" Miranda told "Heru'ur abandoned the planet when its naquadah mines were depleted, leaving the Tagreans in a rather nasty dark age".
This all sounded a little familiar, but there were thousands of worlds out there inhabited by different human cultures, keeping track of them all was impossible and even my advanced mind could only hold so much information.
"The Tagreans removed all historical evidence of the Heru'ur's rule when they eventually came out of that dark age and developed an industrial society, so that they could forget everything. By the time they met the Tau'ri, when the Prometheus became stranded in that part of the galaxy, their recorded history was only 300 years old and all evidence of the long-buried Stargate was lost".
I did dimly recall that episode.
"Despite some disagreement within the Tagrean leadership about the wisdom of locating the Stargate, they eventually agreed to assist SG-1 in finding it so that they could get help from Earth" Miranda then told me "From then on they maintained a distant but cordial relationship with Earth".
Well then they might be advanced enough to have my interest.
"What does this have to do with us?" I asked.
Miranda sipped her coffee before replying.
"I contacted them and invited the Tagrea government to set up an embassy here" she told me.
That was how we did things. Organisations, be they world-wide governments, unions of whole planets, or important groups with great political power, were invited to send ambassadors, and should they wish for closer ties to the Confederation we could work on them.
"The situation with Tagrea has taken a turn for the worst" Miranda told me "Not only has a coup taken place on Tagrea, the Tagrean Security Forces have taken control of nuclear weapons and are using them to keep control of the population".
Well that sucked, but still it wasn't our problem.
"Now the head of the legitimate Tagrean government, a Chairman Ashwan, is asking for our help" Miranda told me "Obviously, he wants his government back, as any deposed leader would".
I sure would if someone took the city-ship Annwn from me,
"Okay I just do not see how this is our problem" I said "We can give Chairman Ashwan asylum at least, but we don't have a military to support him with, and even we did then we'd have to invade a whole planet. After that we'd have to occupy it. Even if that all went smoothly, which it wouldn't, we simply don't have the resources to do something on that scale".
Miranda sighed.
"Gothic we need to do something" she insisted "Tagrean is an ally of the Confederation, and Chairman Ashwan will bring his world into the Confederation if we can secure it for him. He's the democratically elected leader of the whole planet and has the support of the people, if we remove the military leadership he'll open his world to us. Then we can supply with the knowledge that will give them stuff like better medical support for the people, improved farming methods, and luxuries, even entertainment. We can raise the quality of life for the whole planet".
And in turn Tagrean could supply us with the educated people that I needed to help more primitive worlds to advance.
"So what do you want to do?" I asked.
Miranda shifted her weight and smiled. I knew then that she already had a plan as her smile seemed more cocky than normal.
"Let me take the Thunderchild out for a few hours" she requested "I'll go to Tagrean and beam the military leadership up to the ship before they even realise I'm there. Then we'll bring them back here for a public trial, a fair one, and the remaining military will surrender and hopefully go back to following the legitimate government. If they don't then we'll have to try something else, but from what the Chairman told me its the higher ups in the military that are the problem not the common soldier".
This did seem like a good solution, and it shouldn't result in anyone dying.
"Okay go ahead" I told Miranda "Just watch out for nuclear weapons".
(Line Break)
Annwn. Milky Way Galaxy.
It had been a while, but now that the Tagrea situation had been dealt with, and very rapidly thanks to Miranda's plan, we were now waiting for our allies to consulate their hold on their world before they brought it into the Confederation, I had time to visit the lab Seven of Nine was using for her study of advanced tech. This space was being used to examine the stuff we'd gotten from joint mission with the Jaffa.
As to be expected from a race of parasites, the Goa'uld did not invent their technology, but rather they stolen it from various cultures across the galaxy. Most of what made them so strong in terms of tech came from the Ancients, such as the Stargate and the Transportation rings.
Goa'uld technology was based primarily around the use of naquadah, a substance that the Goa'uld secrete into the bloodstream of their hosts. Naquadah was also used as a sort of interface initializer to interact with their most valuable technology, such as the hand device and healing device, similar to the way the Ancient Technology Activation Gene worked. Most Goa'uld technology was weapon based in nature, reflecting the Goa'uld's aggressive society.
Recently we'd taken a few rare bits of Goa'uld from a system lord who'd been hiding out on a remote planet at the edge of the galaxy, in her palace, the host was female, she'd kept many rare treasures on display. Most of which I'd left for the people of that planet to take for themselves as I no need for gold and jewels. I had however taken the tech, and in exchange I would gift the people who this stuff should belong to with large amounts of useful supplies.
They didn't need this tech, and couldn't have used most of it any case, aside from something to barter with, so they no issue letting me take in exchange for stuff they could get some use from. They needed clothes, blankets, tools, building materials, food and so on far more than Goa'uld tech.
One of the items that Seven was keeping in this lab for study was a Goa'uld made bodice, it was a device once used by the Goa'uld to create a symbiote pouch in humans for the purpose of creating new Jaffa. This process also destroyed a person's immune system, so without a symbiote the newly made Jaffa would soon die.
The Goa'uld queen Hathor had such a device with her when she was placed in a Sarcophagus in Mexico. She used the device to convert Jack O'Neill into her First Prime during her failed attempt to takeover Stargate Command and eventually Earth. Thankfully he was healed by a sarcophagus.
It appeared that this device is either obsolete or only used by certain Goa'uld, as one of Apophis priests was seen using a knife and a Goa'uld healing device to create a pouch in Rya'c, although this may be because Rya'c was already a Jaffa.
Since we had no need to make Jaffa, and no symbiotes even if we did, Seven would recycle the device once she had finished studying it. After all it was mostly made of naquadah and that material had value in many places in this galaxy.
A bit of tech that would be later stored in the Cosmic Warehouse was the Hara Kesh. This device fitted snugly around the middle and ring finger of human, and was somehow capable of detecting a Goa'uld or Tok'ra symbiote. When activated, it emits a beam that causes incredible pain, and was considered a debasing form of execution. It presumably required naquadah within the bloodstream, similar to the Kara kesh and Goa'uld healing device.
The Hara Kesh was constructed long ago by the Ashrak as a means for them to use the deadly abilities of a Kara kesh without overt signs of them being discovered as a Goa'uld. Use of the deadly device remained exclusively among the Ashrak who guarded its secrets jealousy. Yet somehow one of the devices had ended up in a treasure trove on a Goa'uld's palace hideout.
Seven would no doubt figure out it was used, and while it most likely required naquada in order to function, we didn't really need a torture device in any case. Seven was only studying it because it might led to use being able to incorporate better scanners and inbuilt weapons into armour suits.
Next up was ring remote, which was was a device of Goa'uld design and typically given to high ranking Jaffa servants. These remotes were a gauntlet styled device that was placed over the hand. A single circular button was present on the top and when pressed, it sent a signal to a nearby transportation rings which activated. This bypassed the need to use control panels.
Again this was something I wanted incorporated into our existing gear as ring platforms could sometimes be hidden, or activated from somewhere far away from the rings.
I moved on and checked out a plasma repeater, which was a rapid-fire energy weapon used primarily by Kull Warriors. They fired a blast similar to that of the staff weapon, only smaller and somewhat less potent. The reduced power was made up for by its high rate of fire, rivaling that of a machine gun.
Kull warriors wear wrist weapons on both of their wrists, but usually shoot just one at a time. This was because the weapons needed to be cooled down between salvos, so by firing one and then the other in turn a Kull warrior could keep firing for longer.
This was yet another bit of tech I hoped to add to our armour suits as while wrist mounted weapons weren't the most practical of things it would be good to have a weapon that couldn't easily be removed from our armour suits.
There was more tech to take a look at including a set of Goa'uld stasis jars, which were small jars intended to hold Goa'uld symbiotes. They were filled with a substance that had sedative properties which could render the symbiote unconscious for a very long period of time.
The jar was surrounded by a ceramic coating, making it look like a piece of pottery, but it was equipped with a small Naquadah generator that emitted a small electrical charge intended to work with the sedative substances so as keep the symbiote alive indefinitely.
Amaterasu might have intended to use these empty stasis jars to contain a few of her rivals, but if that was the case she'd never gotten around to using them. I intended to keep them stored in the Cosmic Warehouse as they were small, and might be worth something in trade one day.
We'd also found Jaffa helmets, stylised to look like the heads of rams, dragons as well as other animals both real and mythical. They would be placed on display in the public parts of the city-ship as a lot of Annwn still needed some decorating.
Something that would be safely put away was a Transphase Eradication Rod, often shortened to TER, which was a Goa'uld weapon used against the Reetou. The device was capable of making an invisible Reetou or any other cloaked entity, visible to humans. Once the Reetou is detected, the gun can fire a blast that blows the Reetou apart.
As far as I knew the Reetou weren't around anymore, but it we needed to test this weapon to find out if it was effective against people using phase cloaks of Ancient design, such as the Sodan cloaks and the ones I could create using Merlin's tech.
By far the largest item in the room was the Sarcophagus, which was a device the Goa'uld use to rapidly heal injuries and extend their lifespans. The device could also bring the recently deceased back to life. Despite the fact that the Goa'uld are scavengers and thieves of technology, there are a few of them who have come up with quite impressive adoptions of technology they have stolen and/or studied. Based on the Ancient healing device, but heavily modified so a human can use it, the Sarcophagus is one of the more impressive Goa'uld inventions.
The first Sarcophagus was created by an ancient Goa'uld known as Telchak. The Sarcophagus was derived from the Ancient healing device (which was later recovered from Honduras by Dr. Daniel Jackson), a technology which was too powerful itself to be used on normal humans.
The Tok'ra do not use the Sarcophagus, claiming that it damages the soul. However I suspected that the tech could be modified to extend human lives and heal without causing problems. Granted with all our advanced medical tech there was no rush here, and I had healing powers, but this device could restore life to the dead. If we could understand how it worked and make it safe so many lives could be saved.
"How goes the work?" I asked Seven of Nine.
She turned to face me and smiled. It was barely noticeable, but it was there.
"Very well" she reported "For now I am focusing on the technology that can be incorporated in our armour suits".
The former borg drone switched on a holographic projector, and the device showed one our armour suits, which was based on Vanir technology and despite all the modifications that had been made it hadn't changed much in appearance.
"These upgraded suits will began with a thick layer of the material Kull warriors wear" Seven started explaining "This not only provides protection, but also makes the armour more comfortable. Aside form the armour itself this suit protects its wearer in many ways. It comes with kinetic barriers, an environmental shield, which defends against extremes of temperatures, toxic gases, and lethal levels of radiation. The helmet is retractable for when you wish to appear less threatening".
So far it sounded very good.
"Also the suit contains its own omni-tool, with advanced scanners, a control device for matter rings, another device that dials a Stargate encase there is no DHD, a communications systems, a wrist mounted plasma repeater on the dominant arm, a Goa'uld personal shield, which replaces the kinetic barriers when it use".
Goa'uld defence shields worked well against advanced weapons, but weren't so helpful against slower moving objects, like a thrown knife, but that was what the environmental shields were for. The Goa'uld shield was better than the kinetic barriers when it came to energy weapons, which the environmental shields also had trouble with. Henace the upgrade. Sure the Kull warrior material could handle energy attacks, but it also had its limits. It was best to have more defences.
"I've also installed a teleporter beacon so to make it easier to return to the ship in an emergency" Seven told me "the helmet has the expected heads up display, and can shift your vision from normal into infrared and ultraviolet".
While I was sure that Seven could add more bells and whistles to the suit if she wished, there came a point when you could have too many options and you'd forget half of what a device could do.
"And of course I replaced the normal cloaking device with a phase cloak" Seven let me know "I installed a failsafe that will force the wearer back into phase should the suit be damaged in anyway or if the power levels drop to low".
Smart, it wouldn't do for one of us to end up stuck out of phase.
"Good work" I praised "I look forward to seeing the finished product".
I was about to say more when Cortana informed me that I would be late for my next appointment.
"No rest for the wicked" I muttered.