The Star Gate Program (Hetalia/Stargate SG1 X-Over)
Author: Ashynarr
Summary: It was the discovery of the century. A devise older than human civilization, capable of transporting people across the galaxy in an instant. But things have a way of quickly becoming complicated, pushing America and others to their limits as they find themselves embroiled in galactic politics and intrigue throughout the stars.
Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine. Stargate isn't mine.
Warning: Alterations of the Stargate timeline/canon and Hetalia canon
[Inspired by Stargate Reopened; I recommend reading it if you have the time.]
[Chapter 2]
~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~
[February 1981]
Catherine Langford, daughter of the esteemed archaeologist Paul Langford and a well-respected mind in the same field herself, was considered by many to be rather level-headed and stern. Those who worked with her long enough to get to know her also considered her kindly, if a bit distant.
Despite her age, she was active within the archaeological circles, going out to sites across the world to look over various digs as well as visiting what lectures on new discoveries she could manage. It was quietly considered an honor to have her stop by, and even more so for her to speak with you.
On this particular Saturday, however, she was in fact at home, sitting by the window with a cup of coffee while looking out into the backyard of her modest home in New York State. There was a slight frown on her face as she took another sip of her drink, focused more on her thoughts than the outside world.
After the accident that had claimed her fiance's life, she'd tried to move on with her own life, putting all thoughts of the Giza project out of her mind. However, life had apparently not been content with that, bringing reminder after reminder before her until she couldn't take it anymore and began petitioning for the military to resume funding research on it.
The first few presidents had written it off as a joke, seeing as she had her father's only surviving papers from then in her possession, which she was understandably reluctant to part with lest they be claimed and hidden away by the government. She was honestly beginning to believe that she would never see the ring again within her lifetime, seeing as the latest president hadn't even bothered to send a refusal form this time around.
She sighed, feeling her age more than ever. Even after all these years, she still missed her fiance, who had believed in the project so much and paid the ultimate price for it. A hand came up from the cup to take hold of the old amulet she always wore, fingers closing around it carefully.
Would you be proud of me, Ernest, if you knew what I was doing now? Would you be glad to see your life's work finished after all these years? Or would you think me an old fool for chasing after an old dream?
Lost in these questions, she didn't hear the knock on the door, only to be startled when the doorbell chimed for her attention. She set her drink down on the table and tucked the amulet back into her shirt, wondering who was stopping by this early in the morning.
Needless to say, Catherine was surprised when she opened the door to a rather young man in a suit with a worn bomber jacket over it. He grinned cheerfully, offering a hand. "Hey there. Dr. Langford, right?"
She took it without thinking, trying to place why he seemed so familiar despite knowing she'd never seen him before. "Yes, that's me…"
"Great! Ah, can I come in? I've got some stuff I need to talk to you about, and it'll probably take a while…"
"Oh, of course, excuse my manners-" Catherine opened the door the rest of the way, not realizing until after he was inside and admiring one of the displays in the hallway that she had just let a complete stranger in without even knowing his name. "Who are you?"
The man turned back to her, blinking, before chuckling. "Sorry, forgot to introduce myself. I'm Alfred F. Jones, one of the president's assistants. I'm here to talk to you about a project you recently petitioned us about."
Ah, so that's what this was about. She returned to her seat, picking up her cup and settling down without looking at him. "Has he written me off as an eccentric as well? I'm sorry he had to send you in person just to tell me that."
Alfred shook his head. "Actually, I'm here to tell you that your request was approved, and that you'll have all the funding and resources you need to reactivate the Giza project."
Catherine stopped, turning back to look at him, searching for any hint of a joke in his face. When she couldn't find it, she suddenly found relief in the fact that she was already sitting and thus unable to embarrass herself. "Oh."
"You'll be working with the Air Force mostly, but you'll be able to hire outside people as needed as long as they're willing to sign secrecy papers. Is there anything else you think we'll need?"
"A computer." She responded, finally returning to the present. "Also, I'm going to need whatever papers you can get from the original project, along with retrieving the cover stones and fossil that were found with the gate-"
"We're looking into the second one, but the latter is already in progress as of… yesterday? Yeah, yesterday." Alfred paused. "How do you feel about Colorado?"
"Colorado?" She asked. "I've heard it's a decent place… why?"
"Well, you see…"
~0~0~
[June 1990]
"Alfred, what's all this about?"
Alfred looked up from his papers to see his brother, Matthew, looking rather put out.
"What's all what about?"
"This!" Matthew huffed, throwing down the sheaf of papers that Alfred recognized as the requisition form for two more supercomputers to be built in the lowest three levels of the Cheyenne Mountain complex, which happened to be where the most recently commissioned military supercomputer had already been installed.
It also happened to be a NORAD base, which was probably why Matthew had even learned of the US Air Force suddenly siphoning extra funds and resources into it with little explanation.
"Look, it's no big deal; we just need the extra processing power for a few things."
"That isn't the issue! Well, it is, partially, but that's not the main issue. If you had a good reason for it I could understand, but some classified project that has an unknown completion date rings a lot of warning bells."
Alfred sighed. "I know, Matt, and I wish I could give you the reason, but this is seriously classified right now for basically everyone but the people involved."
"Classified enough that you can't even tell me about it?"
"Classified enough that I can't tell my own intelligence agencies about it."
There was a long moment of silence, Matthew's annoyance fading away as he mentally rolled those words over in his mind.
"...Alfred, promise me this isn't anything like your other highly classified projects."
Alfred smiled. "I promise it's nothing like those. Look, I'll talk to my boss and see what I can do about the classified thing, but I probably won't be able to tell you anything for a few years."
Matthew sighed. "Fine, I'll wait, but there had better be a really good explanation."
"It'll blow your mind. Figuratively speaking."
"Sir? You said you wanted to see me?" Both men turned to the doorway, where a woman had just stepped in, stopping upon seeing Matthew. "Oh, are you in a meeting right now? I can just wait outside-"
"It's fine, we were just finishing." Matthew replied kindly. He glanced back to his brother, muttering a "we'll talk later" to him before nodding politely to the newcomer and leaving.
Alfred sighed, rubbing his forehead while gesturing for her to sit. "Sorry about that, he sort of dropped in unexpectedly. I called you in for..."
"You said you were reassigning me to a new project, sir."
"Ah, right, right. I've heard a lot of good things about you, Captain Carter. One of the best and brightest in the Air Force, and not just because of the PhD in astrophysics." Alfred smiled, settling back into his chair.
Samantha, to her credit, only blushed lightly at the praise. "Thank you, sir."
"Right, well, the reason I called you in today… tell me, have you ever heard of a Dr. Catherine Langford?"
She frowned, trying to place the name. "Isn't she an archaeologist? Sir."
Alfred waved it off. "Yes, she is, and she's in charge of the civilian half of the new project you're going to be joining."
"Sir?"
Alfred pulled out the folder with the documents from the new Giza project, including the pictures of the objects now residing in their Colorado home. "This is the Giza ring. We don't know what it does, only that the Ancient Egyptians called it the 'Doorway to Heaven', that it's made out of materials not found on Earth, and that it's older than human civilization."
Her mouth formed a small o as she read through the scant details available. Eventually she looked back up, her posture determined. "What do you need me to do first, sir?"
Alfred smiled. His soldiers never failed to make him proud when the moment called for it. "Get the new supercomputers being designed to work with this thing hooked up and programmed so that we can activate it and see what it does. The president himself promised as many resources as he can offer without raising any flags in the rest of the government circles to get that done."
"Understood, sir. When am I leaving?"
"Tomorrow morning. Make sure you report to Dr. Langford once you get there and let her know you're in charge of the computer programming. You're dismissed; go pack and be ready."
"Understood, sir." She paused. "And… thank you, I guess."
Alfred laughed. "Don't thank me yet, Captain."
~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~
AN: So 'official canon' has Samantha Carter working alongside Catherine Langford to work on the gate and the supercomputer programed to dial it. That made it really easy to bring her into the story, and she'll have her times to shine in the future (hopefully). She's still fairly young in this chapter (about her canon age in the original material I think?), but that's not an important detail.
Also, the time in which Catherine got the government to finally agree to reopening the project varies wildly, which is one of the reasons I just threw up my hands, said 'fuck it all', and did my own thing. If it's wrong, so be it, this is an AU anyways because, well, crossover.
You may remember that in the original draft, I had Matthew involved from the start too (because of NORAD and such), but after research I realized that Canada actually was never involved in the program until Atlantis and the world wide revealing of the program. This is my nod to that, and also my reasoning for why the US Air Force would choose such a place if they were going for secrecy. It's hard to dismantle and move a half-built supercomputer, after all!
(Not to worry though, the other countries will be brought in! ...eventually. We'll see.)
(I hope I have the characters in character so far. I really do need to sit down and watch the episodes again before I get into the main plot stuff.)
