DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, Stargate, or anything you may find in my story that in any way resembles a character, story, or plot that is owned by another person.
Review Responses are at the end of the chapter.
Harry Potter and Setesh's Blunder
Chapter 4
July 27, 1997
During the week after the Apollo and Ha'tak caper, Harry spent most of the week with Mione and her parents getting to know them better. They finally settled on names for their animagi, with each naming the other. Hermione named Harry's Peregrine Falcon, "Swift," and Harry named Hermione's Eagle Owl, "Sage." They also made some progress on their business plans.
Harry and Hermione shared with her parents the secret of Harry's encounter with the Goa'uld and what they have done and what they plan to do. They had discussed getting married out of Hogwarts and they didn't want to leave Mione's family out of the main loop. Despite the fact they accepted magic easily enough her parents didn't believe a word of the space-ship story, so they showed them everything.
They took them to Shawdon Wood, showed them the Al'kesh, and took the stargate to the Ha'tak on the dark side of the moon. From there they flew another Al'kesh out to within line of sight of the Earth so they could truly see and believe what they were talking about. After that, they of course swore to keep their secrets but being big lovers of Star Trek, they wanted in too.
In order to prevent curious muggles in the future stumbling upon the magical part of their past and possibly getting them into exposure trouble in the magical world, they decided to get Hermione an equivalent false ID to Harry's after they get married, she will be called "Emma Walters." They of course would keep their normal identities in the magical world.
After the Grangers became believers they were ready to embark on their first extra-planetary expedition to find a resource world they could exploit for their grand plan. Harry asked the small group of people who were 'in the know' to meet him and Mione at Shawdon Wood to go over the plans she and Harry concocted.
In attendance: Harry, Hermione, Sirius, Remus and Dora Lupin, Wendell and Monica Granger.
"Hi everyone, this is the plan Hermione and I worked up. In order to begin any real ship design and building effort we are going to need a place off-world that has the resources we need." started Harry.
"I have gone through all of Setesh's memories of the status of certain candidate worlds as far as he knew them 5,000 years ago. There are several possibilities. But, the first one I've selected to investigate which might pose the least risk is a planet called Edora that Setesh knew to have rich veins of naquadah and trinium, but at the time had not been settled as a mining colony because of a vicious cycle every 150 years of meteor showers that rain heavy devastation onto the planet." continued Harry.
"Well, if the Goa'uld did not want to risk maintaining a settlement there, why should we try it?" asked Remus.
"Well, I don't plan on having a major settlement -on- the planet surface, there are only seven of us anyway at the moment. Instead, I plan to use some of the available material supply in the Ha'tak to design and build a mobile orbital shipyard and space station there. Then I plan to design and construct mining robots using nano-crystalline technology to do the actual mining and refining work on the surface. We will use ring transporters to move the refined materials from the surface to the shipyard; and again nano-crystalline constructor robots to do the ship construction. We will protect the shipyard with powerful shields and automated plasma pulse cannons to take out any asteroids that might come it's way." said Harry.
"If you can do that with the knowledge of the Goa'uld, how come they didn't do that?" asked Monica.
"I don't really know. But if you want my opinion I think they are lazy and not very creative. They scavenge and assimilate most of their technology and I think they just get used to using it in pretty much the same way they found it. The only place they seem to get creative is with weapons and that is probably because they are a feudal society who fight among themselves almost as much as they fight everyone else and they are accustomed to just having slave species do all their manual work." answered Harry.
"What about our appearance Harry?" asked Remus.
"Well, we're not going in looking like traditional witches and wizards, nor are we going in ordinary Earth muggle garb. One thing we do not want to do is attract any direct attention back to Earth. We will use a cover story and Mione and I designed this uniform that we will wear so that we look like we're from some official organization, but nothing anyone would recognize." answered Harry.
"If we need to tell anyone we meet on Edora specifics, we will say we are from the planet Shawdon. Probably only our neighbors here in Hedgeley would even get the reference. Of course we will decline any invitation to share our stargate address or anything else that would point anyone to a real place. My hope is that if we can establish a permanent outpost, that from then on we can use the real cover of being Edoran's from Edora, when we visit any other place we might travel to." said Harry.
"So Harry, are you doing this because it is your ultimate goal to wage war against all the Goa'uld in the galaxy and free all the human planets from them?" asked Monica.
"Well, by the time it gets that far I certainly hope it's not just our little operation doing that. I hope to have a stronghold of our own, take some initiative and show some leadership of course. But I think by eventually bringing these other human populations up to space-age technology militarily, including and especially Earth, that it would ultimately be a large alliance of players doing that. But, in general, yes. Does anyone here really want to see these Goa'uld parasites continue in the long term to enslave and infect humans all over the galaxy, and to pose as our gods?" said Harry.
"I don't plan to just stop with the science and technology I've learned from Setesh. First of all it is 5,000 years old by Goa'uld standards. I hope to build upon what I have learned from them and then experiment, design, and build better tech. to become stronger than they are. For one thing, other than the ships we've already annexed, all the new stuff we build even if it is based on their science and technology will be designed to not even look like their tech. so that no one mistakes us for Goa'uld and hopefully doesn't mistakenly believe that we are limited only to what the Goa'uld can do, even if that is true at the very beginning." said Harry.
"I hope to at least incorporate some useful Earth tech into our first ships as well, the differences alone might give us some edge in the beginning. I also hope that at some point we can recruit some top notch scientists via our business, because I can foresee some things we will need help on almost immediately such as computer control systems, possibly even artificial intelligence that we can use on a large scale to operate our warships since we are so few in numbers; some advanced robotics and artificial intelligence engineers would be useful too just to name a couple." concluded Harry.
"Okay Harry, so when do you want to do this?" asked Remus.
"I want to start tomorrow with the reconnaissance drone. If all goes well, I want to make an initial fact-finding expedition there with the team. Then we'll go from there. Who knows what situation we'll find." answered Harry.
"Ahem, Harry, there is one more thing Dora and I wanted to discuss with you before we set the final plan in motion." said Remus.
"You see, Dora and I are expecting..." "Yeahhhh." squealed Hermione followed by a more subdued but nevertheless excited sounding "Ohhhh..." from Monica. "Congratulations," everyone yelled.
"Thanks everyone. Yeah, so we would like Dora to remain behind for these types of missions while she's pregnant, right honey?" said Remus.
"That's right. Harry, I was thinking I could stay behind at the Ha'tak or the Al'kesh and remain in contact with you via the reconnaissance drones to sort of act like your HQ in case you need to call for backup or need something sent over to you or anything." said Dora.
"Okay that sounds like a good idea. So, the away team will be: Harry, Hermione, Sirius, and Remus; and Dora, Wendell, and Monica will man the HQ." said Harry. Codenames: Hugh, Emma, Orion (Sirius), and John (Remus). "Remus, you're sure that only Earth's moon can trigger your furry little problem right?" asked Harry. "Uhm, well, we'll find out won't we?" asked Remus.
...
The next day, July 28, 1997
"We will all stay in contact mentally through the invisible rings. Remember the port-key mode of the rings will not work over there." Harry reminded the away team.
"Okay Dora, dial up Edora." said Harry.
There was a ~Kawoosh~ sound and an unstable vortex of energy stabbed forth in a violent cloud of energy reaching 23 meters (~75ft) long and 9 meters (~30ft) high; which just as suddenly dissipated leaving a vertical event horizon inside the ring that looked like a puddle of water or quicksilver stood up on its side.
"Send the reconnaissance drone and activate the long-range communication device." said Harry.
The recon. drone passed through the event horizon and a few moments later the DHD for the remote gate came into view, panning left and right and up revealed nothing more than a partly cloudy blue sky a small clearing and a path through some trees.
"The drone sensors read good oxygen content, gravity similar to Earth's, no toxins detected in the air. It appears safe for human travel." said Dora.
"Elevate the drone to higher altitude and re-scan visuals." said Harry.
"Ah, look at that. It looks like we have found a small human settlement after all. I'm not seeing any evidence of Goa'uld activity though and the drone sensors do not pick up any either." said Harry.
"Dora, raise the altitude a bit more so that any curious people on the ground will not notice the drone and take a pass around that settlement and let's see what we have there." said Harry.
"Harry, it looks like it's just a small agrarian settlement. Sensors indicate a population of 200 humans and no technology, that's it." said Hermione.
"Alright then, the mission is a go..."
...
A few moments later, the Away team consisting of Harry, Hermione, Remus, and Sirius arrived through the gate dressed in light tan and brown uniforms that look between the cross of a muggle monk and a priest. They kept with the hooded look because it made them feel comfortably similar to their wizarding world robes, sans the actual robe. Other than the hood the seams were cut to military precision and they had made up insignia on their collars just to give the impression of some rank. Harry had two gold circles, Hermione, Remus, and Sirius each had one gold circle. This would indicate to the observer that Harry was in charge of the team at least. Their appearance through the gate did not go unnoticed.
"Hello there, who are you people?" asked a teenage boy.
"Hi, my name is Hugh, this is Emma, this is Orion, and this is John. We are peaceful explorers. We noticed there is a small village nearby and we just wanted to come and meet the locals. What is your name if I may ask?" asked Hugh.
"My name is Garan." said the boy.
"Welcome, I will take you to meet my mom who is also our town leader."
...
"Garan, Garan, where are you?" hollered a woman's voice in the distance.
"Over here mom, I'm on my way back now with some visitors." yelled back Garan.
"What are you doing Garan? Where did you find visitors? We never have visitors." asked the woman.
"I don't know mom, they came through the stone ring." said Garan.
"That is difficult to believe." said the woman.
"I saw it with my own eyes." said Garan.
"Hello ma'am, my name is Hugh, this is Emma, Orion, and John. We did come through the ring. Where we come from it is called a stargate. We use it to travel between different planets."
"The ancestors..." the woman mumbled under her breath.
"Oh, well where is my manners. My name is Laira and this is my son Garen. Why don't you come back to our village with us, then we can sit and talk and you can tell us more about the stone ring and why you've come here." said Laira.
As Laira greeted each member of the Away team in turn, Orion thinking this woman was very beautiful turned on the charm and kissed the back of the lady's hand and Laira's eyes lingered on him a bit before she dropped her hand and said, "Okay right this way then."
Hugh, Emma, and John shared an amused glance at Orion's antics.
...
"Haynan, this is Orion. He and his friends have come through the stone ring and are interested in trade." said Laira.
"That is a hard thing to ask a man to believe." said Haynan.
"I know what you mean." said Orion.
"There is nothing more than meets the eye here. Our fields, those few buildingsā¦our children. What we have, we need."
"We're only interested in fair trade, Sir" said Orion.
"Well, Haynan is right Orion, we don't have much that off-worlders such as yourself might need to trade for." said Laira.
"Maybe, maybe not." started Hugh.
"We understand you are only a small village of 200 and you largely just live off the land." continued Hugh.
"We can offer medicine, healing, technology, education, construction of buildings and infrastructure." continued Hugh.
We have come from a different planet that is very crowded and there is so much unexplored and unsettled land on this planet." continued Hugh.
"We intend to start a small colony of our own very far away from here so that we don't disturb you or interfere with your resources at all. In the beginning we will be very small, much smaller than your village is now, but we thought that while we are developing we could trade for food or any other goods and services your community likes to produce." continued Hugh.
"It is up to you if you wish to develop friendly relations with us. We will leave that option open to you. As for now, you will probably only see us coming and going through the stargate, what you call the stone ring. Much of our coming and going will be through other means of transportation though, such as sky ships that travel in the air and in space." said Hugh.
"Surely not. How can you do such things?" said Laira.
"Where we come from we were an agrarian society thousands of years ago much like yours is now. Our population grew in great numbers and spread across the entire planet and we developed advanced science and technology, including machines that do a lot of the work for us that you do by hand. Since you probably have not seen much of this before it will be difficult to explain. But, you will be welcome to come visit our settlement and see what we're doing. If you are interested in learning more we can teach you over time." said Hugh.
"Where are you people from and can you show us some of these machines you speak of?" asked Garan.
"We are from a place called Shawdon, and sure, hold on a moment." said Hugh.
Hugh summoned the reconnaissance drone over to their position.
Approaching the village center, the Edoran's saw their first bit of advanced technology. A spherical metallic object bisected by a glowing yellow light hovering 5 feet off the ground flew over to settle next to Hugh and his team.
The crowd all gaped in amazement and many oohs and aahs were heard.
A girl about Garan's age, whom he introduced as his friend Naytha asked: "What is that?"
"That is a reconnaissance drone." started Mione. "It is capable of flight as you can see, it has a defensive energy shield, as well as defensive energy weapons to protect itself in case it is attacked. It has sensors, computers, and communications. We send it through gates like your stone ring to scout out new places we haven't been to before that want to visit to make sure it is safe for us to travel there." concluded Mione.
"Wow, that is very interesting. Can I touch it?" asked Naytha.
"Sure, go ahead it won't hurt you." said Hugh.
"So, this is the kind of thing that you would be bringing to our world and using here?" asked Paynan, another male villager.
"Yes, and others like it. We have craft that can carry people that we can fly in to get from one place to another very quickly. We have very large craft that can travel to and from the surface of the planet to space and across space to other planets." replied John, trying to participate in the conversation.
"This looks dangerous. It looks like you plan to bring dangerous things to our world." said Telmar, yet another male villager.
"Well we won't lie to you," continued John. "It can be dangerous if misused. Our technology does include very powerful weapons and even shields that we use to defend ourselves. We have no malicious intent to any of you though. We plan to settle far away on the other side of the planet to stay out of your way." finished John.
"I don't think that will be necessary." said Laira.
"Perhaps we will just go slowly with exchanging ideas with you until we know your ways are safe." continued Laira.
"That sounds very reasonable." said Hugh.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your hospitality. We need to return home now and prepare an expedition to return to begin establishing our settlement." said Hugh.
"Certainly Hugh and fellow travelers. When you return, you will bring this handsome gentleman back with you won't you?" said Laira indicating Orion.
"Ha, ha, ha." said John. "If you keep teasing him like that we might not get him to return home with us at all."
For some reason this seemed to reduce most of any remaining tensions and appeared to indicate everyone was going to get along just fine.
"When do you think you will be back?" asked Laira.
"Hmm. Let me think." Harry thought out loud: 'Let's see, Edora is ~! #$ light years from home, so mumble, mumble, multiply by .27375, carry the 4.' "Uh, I think we will have our mother-ship here in about 1 month give or take a day for finalizing plans; and then we can return through the gate and get started setting things up." concluded Hugh.
...
Next day back at Shawdon Wood. July 29, 1997.
"Alright everyone, who wants to make this 1 month trip in our new mother-ship to Edora?" asked Harry.
"Sorry Mum and Dad but I'm definitely going." said Mione.
"I didn't figure it any other way pumpkin." said Wendell.
"We can't go dears, we need to get back to our dental practice. This past week has been fun and all but, we have our normal lives to get back to. Just don't start any intergalactic wars or something okay?" added Monica.
"We're both going, right Remy?" said Sirius.
"I don't know. It wouldn't be good for Dora to be here all alone for a month and she couldn't go, if she needed a proper magical healer we'd be out of luck." replied Remus.
"I was going to say, me too. But, I guess you're right Remy. But, you can go if you want." said Dora.
"No, I want to stay here with you. I know Sirius can look after Harry and Hermione. Why don't you guys take Dobby with you too? Then you can have more help if you need it." said Remus.
"Okay, that's a good idea. I'll talk to him later about it."
"So Harry, I think we need to get a lot of provisions if we're going to be stuck on a space-ship for a whole month. Besides food and drink, we need to bring a bunch of different potions in case we need any and the proper comforts of home, I'm not sleeping on what a Jaffa considers good sleeping. Plus, as the most muggle raised here I have to say, we need to get a big TV, a stereo, plenty of movies and music and any other entertainment we might want. In fact, I might just need quite a collection of books for the trip as well." said Mione.
"Hmm. Okay, let's do this then. We'll go out today and tomorrow and load up on everything we'll need or want, fill up bottomless backpacks for each of us. Then we will start out tomorrow evening, does that sound good? That should get us there and be able to get things kicked off for the construction projects and gate back in time for the new year at Hogwarts to start Sept. 1." replied Harry.
"Remember Dora, and the rest of you staying behind. You can't use the gate to dial to us or communicate with us while we are in motion. The gates only work when both ends are either on a planet or near a stationary celestial body such as in orbit aboard a ship and then only after the gate addresses get updated. But, I just wanted to warn you it won't work while we're gone. Also, I am implementing a gate shield on the one remaining here on Earth so that you don't unluckily get any surprise visitors." continued Harry.
"What about these rings you gave us Harry?" asked Dora.
"No, they will only work within this solar system. Once we enter hyper-space and travel a light-year or more away, they will not work. Even the long-range communication devices only work through a proper stargate connection so that won't help us either. I guess reliable long-range communications is something we're going to have to develop for ourselves someday." answered Harry.
"Now that I think about it, I'm going to use this month of down-time so to speak while we are in transit to create a lab on the Ha'tak and start doing some nitty gritty design work. I have some ideas already, I just need time to work on them. Okay, let's go shopping people." concluded Harry.
...
July 30, 1997 6pm...
Dora, Remus, Wendell, and Monica went to the Al'kesh in Shawdon Wood to see off Harry, Hermione, Sirius, and Dobby. For Hermione's benefit, Sirius brought the entire Black library in a shrunken trunk. Hermione brought a great deal of her 7th year books as well as many theoretical and advanced magic tomes she happily bought with Harry's money for some additional research. Harry bought a load of university master's level books on scientific theory and applications and cleared out several computer stores, hobby electronics stores, and a bought a large variety of computer and machining tools for some tinkering. He also brought about a pound of gold and a pound of titanium for an experiment he wanted to try out.
"Okay Dora, Remus, Wendell, and Monica. First I want to thank all of you, especially you Wendell and Monica, for supporting us and having enough faith and confidence in us to let Hermione participate in this. We don't talk about it much but what we're doing can be dangerous. I don't expect any danger, but even though we are in a great Goa'uld warship armed to the teeth, if we were say ambushed by three other Ha'tak we probably wouldn't survive that fight unless they took us alive of course-and well maybe if they try that we might come home with three Ha'tak as a result." Harry said with a wicked grin that said, they will have the fight of their lives against us three wizards no matter what happens." said Harry.
"Anyway, I'm not saying this to discourage you, but I want to be honest and practical and explain what I need to tell you next." started Harry.
"I have gone to Gringotts and set up a will. As you know I've amassed a sizable estate so, I've left everything divided between the four of you, if God forbid we do not return from this adventure. Also in which case you all should take this Al'kesh with its sampling of all the Goa'uld technology that I have and tell them the story so they know what is out there and could use this stuff to try to prepare for what is coming someday." concluded Harry.
"Okay, everyone we're off. We should be back by August 31. Keep the gate shield up. I will take it down remotely when it's time to come through." said Harry.
~Kawoosh~ and the Trio gated to the Ha'tak and began their month long trek.
...
Harry called Sirius and Mione to his lab.
A/N: See my profile for a link to an image of a kara-kesh. For Harry's new invention, imagine that picture without the finger-bands or the large ostentatious crystal in the middle of the palm.
"Hey guys, I have a surprise for you. My first new invention." started Harry.
"This is an 'Armilla Virga' or Arm Virga for short, which means 'arm wand' in Latin. This little beauty will do several things for us. I have created my own alloy of gold and trinium, laced with naquadah to form our own version of what the Goa'uld call a kara-kesh. As you can see it looks similar to a kara-kesh except there are no finger bands, there is no need for them; and instead of a focusing crystal I am using a smaller and less ostentatious naquadah-trinium hard point that connects to a thread of naquadah interlaced within the gold-trinium armband. When you are wearing the Arm Virga casually your palm and of course fingers are completely unadorned. It just looks like a big fancy piece of jewelry on your forearm. The palm piece seamlessly folds back into the forearm and only flips out to take it's place in the palm when you will it to." said Harry.
"Looks nice, right? Well, wait until you see what it can do. First of all, for a proper witch or wizard this can entirely take the place of a need for a wand. Even with the palm hard-point disabled, the naquadah thread in the arm band acts as a focus that gives you the appearance of performing wandless magic, you merely would do your common wand motions with your hand if you want. In time you can train yourself not to require the motions. Unlike a Goa'uld though, you can use this to perform any spell, hex, curse, jinx, charm, etc. that we can do." continued Harry.
"It has permanent charms to turn invisible or be summoned at will and cannot be removed by anyone other than the person who is wearing it. It also contains the communications charm we use on the rings, so that as long as we are in the same solar system we can communicate telepathically with anyone else wearing one. Not to worry you can also choose not to communicate whenever and with whoever you want also, it's not a back-door into your mind. And finally it has the bi-directional port-key charm that can teleport you to and from a reset-table anchor location of your choosing anywhere on the same planet." continued Harry.
"That is cool enough, but this now answers your other question of how will we enable all of you who did not blend with a Goa'uld the ability to operate Goa'uld naquadah locked technology. This is it. With the naquadah hard-point enabled as your focus, you just need to will a neural command like any Goa'uld would normally do and you have the same exact functionality and control that a Goa'uld would have. Very neat huh?" continued Harry.
"But that's not all, if you act now and call the toll free number before the end of this commercial, you can get two for the price of one, and watch what you can do if you wear one of these on each arm."
Harry put on a second Arm Virga and willed the hard-points to extend into each palm.
"The naquadah in each of these armbands amplifies the potency of our magic, our raw power. With two of these I can will a certain amount of magic energy together to form balls of plasma energy that you can fire like a cannon ball. You can train this to be like large balls of explosive energy or narrowly focused beams of piercing and cutting energy. I'm not going to demonstrate the explosive version in the lab, but watch this." continued Harry.
He pointed down range at a 1 pound block of trinium set on a target with a second block behind it to catch the residual energy. He didn't want to start cutting holes in his own ship's bulkhead. He raised both hands up palms together about a foot apart and concentrated on magic energy building up at the center-point between his palms. Within a moment the air between his hands began to sparkle with blue energy, after it had built up a bit he shifted his hands and palms forward a bit to aim the center of them at the block of trinium and willed a narrow beam of the energy to shoot out to the target. The energy lanced out like a blue bolt of lightning at the target scorching a hole in it then about a minute later the beam cut through the entire block of trinium and started hitting the second block behind it. At that Harry willed the energy to dissipate, shook his hands free down to his side and retracted the hard-points on the armbands.
"Using that much power continuously like I just did to maintain a beam for a minute is tiring. So, watch how much you do that all at one time. Naturally, you can direct just as much energy to any type of magic shield you know of, as well as use the same plasma energy technique to create an energy shield like the kara-kesh does, that can reflect high-speed kinetic objects like bullets and staff weapon energy blasts. Also, I haven't experimented with this yet of course, but in theory you could emulate the kinetic energy effects of any magical spell we know of, so with two of these and practice you could probably use these to fly, perform a sort of telekinesis since you could simultaneously control the levitation force in two planes, etc." continued Harry.
"And wait, there is still more. If you act now, I will throw in the instructions on how to use the newly combined Goa'uld neural-magic interface using another combo of the Legilimency spell and the Pensieve charm that will allow two wearer's of one of these armband's to directly exchange selected knowledge and memories with each other. Meaning, with this I can finally share with you all that I learned from Tom and Setesh. Uhm, you could also use this technique to read the mind of a prisoner as well, and so forth." concluded Harry.
"Holy shit Harry." said Sirius.
"Holy shit Harry is right." said Mione.
"This is the answer to all of our immediate problems." added Mione.
She jumped the remaining distance to Harry and put the biggest kiss on him yet, with a very enthusiastic and appreciative back breaking hug to go with it. About 10 minutes later the two came up for air.
Grinning, Harry said "You're welcome Mione! I knew you'd love it, especially that last bit." concluded Harry.
...
Over the next few days Harry made a pair of Arm Virga's for everyone on the team, even Mione's parents. While it won't give them magic they don't have, it will give them the neural interface to operate Goa'uld technology and can project a standard Goa'uld kinetic shield for them. So, it is useful to them too.
Over the following couple days Harry used his Arm Virga's to transfer selected memories of Tom and Setesh to Mione and Sirius. A few days after that Hermione called them all into -her- lab to go over a discovery that she made.
"Guys, I think I found a way to solve another one of our immediate problems." said Mione.
"Harry said that initially all he could do with the nano-crystal technology to create mining and construction robots is to give them certain basic commands. He would need to build different sets of robots essentially to perform a set of functions and then set up different routines for each group and set them to task but there would be no management of their work or revisions to plans on the fly to react to unanticipated events. So, we were uncertain how effective our first run at this would be." started Mione.
"So, following Harry's example of combining Goa'uld science with our magic, I have made some initial prototypes and performed some unit testing on adaptive nano-crystal building blocks that can be charmed with the knowledge of how to perform an entire range of tasks including experience dealing with real-life circumstances the same as we charm a portrait in the magical world with the memories of someone. We simply would not wait for a person to pass away before 'waking' these magical 'adaptive-nano-crystal portraits or bots'. So, in this case we charm a set of said blocks with Setesh memories of how mining is done, another set for how refining is done, another set for how cargo-handling and logistics is done to move the materials through the rings, another set to build the ships we want, another set to perform basic tasking around the shipyard to maintain it while we're not here, etc, etc. then we would replicate as many of them as we need to get the jobs done." said Mione.
"Wow, that is brilliant Mione." said Harry. "There are a couple things I'd like you to work on if you can. 1) When you say replicate and adapt, this gives me shivers for some reason. 2) Can you make sure that they cannot become self-aware and/or can only follow the orders we give them and cannot act of their own free will? 3) This might play into the previous point but try to work up a master-slave relationship and failsafe with these adaptive-nano-crystal bots so that we have some control, say perhaps tied into our Arm Virgo's or something so that we can *always* over-ride their programming and render them inert or whatever we need to do for safety reasons." said Harry.
"I understand what you mean Harry, I will get working on that. Thanks for approving of my idea. I will make it safe before we use them." answered Mione.
"So, Sirius, no pressure now, but have you geniused up some cool breakthroughs that will help us on our way to greatness?" asked Harry.
"Well now that you mention it Harry. I don't think this is on the level of inventing a really new idea like you two have, but I've been working on one of the problems you said you wanted to solve and that is to provide full cloaking for vessels larger than an Al'kesh. Right now we can't do that. But, I think I have stumbled on a way to do it actually not using any new technology, it's so simple I really don't know why it hasn't been done before. But, with the draft schematic of the mobile shipyard you've designed I think that instead of trying to use one much larger cloak emitter to exponentially scale which is off the charts for power consumption. We can just install 10 overlapping cloak emitters of the current largest variant, one in the center top and bottom of the station and four on each of the top and bottom of the station at the four farthest corners spaced to maximize overlap and coverage of the entire station. We will still need more power of course to keep 10 cloaks running simultaneously but, 10 of the normal size cloak power sources, we don't need to experiment with something 100 times larger to get the 10x throughput we need." said Sirius.
"Hmm. I like it Sirius. In fact this whole operation is looking like it will shape up to lend itself to being entirely cloaked at all times, even the ground operations for the ring transports and the logistics outpost. The only thing that won't be cloaked obviously is the mines themselves and the nano-bots but even then we can cloak the entrance to the mines and the nano-bots are so small they are not seen with a naked eye anyway. This is great, that way there is very little chance our operation could be casually noticed by any other off-world visitors that might come by some time." said Harry.
By the time they arrived at the destination, Hermione had perfected the safety features and fail-safe's on their nano-bots' to Harry's satisfaction and then mass-produced them to the quantities specified in their implementation plans.
...
August 29, 1997
The Trio's Ha'tak exited hyper-space right where they should have, outside the line of sight from Edora separated by Edora's twin moons. Harry navigated their Ha'tak to half the distance of the twin moons orbit of Edora and the planet and placed the Ha'tak into the same orbital pattern as the moon's with the planet so that the Ha'tak would take the same orbital track around Edora as the moons.
They implemented their plan and set up the nano-bots to construct a custom designed space station and ship yard directly above the Ha'tak that had work space and living quarters for over 1,000 people and 4,200,000 tons of cargo space, 90 ring transports, and 1 stargate. The shipyard is designed to handle construction, dock, or repair of up to 6 large capitol ships simultaneously and ample space for other transient craft to come and go as necessary. They will not need to house anywhere near that amount of people and the manual work will all be done by nano-bots, they simply wanted to build-in provisions to support up to 1,000 people comfortably. Once the station is complete, it's cloak will also cover the Ha'tak docked directly beneath it.
For it's mobility, the 3 giant docking arms can fold 90 degrees then 6 Ha'tak class interstellar hyper-drives can propel it at the same speed as a single Ha'tak can travel. For example, in one month this station could reach Earth.
This first station will be dubbed the "Marauder's Den" and once completed will be their new permanent headquarters. It is designed to handle ship designs far different than the space wasting Goa'uld pyramid based ships. For one, these warships will not be outfit to carry 2,000 troops and their equipment or bombers so they won't need all that size, plus they simply do not want to be mistaken for Goa'uld out in the galaxy. The Marauder's Den packs the same fire power of 3 Ha'tak with 180 staff cannons, controlled by an automated detection and tracking system that can protect if from the meteor showers this system is known for.
A/N: See my profile for a link to an image of the "Marauder's Den" space station.
At Hermione's urging and based on the past military experience of her father no less, she asked Harry to design in redundancy for their power systems and shields. So that the shields were designed in a tri-shield configuration so that as one set of shield emitters drops to 25%, a second fully charged set takes over at 100%, the first begins to recharge, then when the second set drops to 25%, the third fully charged set takes over at 100%, and when that drops to 25%, the first set is brought back on-line and hopefully had a chance to fully recharge.
The naquadah power plants were built in the same tri-power configuration, which provided the additional advantage that as long as none of the power systems have been taken out, that the spares can rapidly re-charge any off-line depleted shields. The overlapping cloak emitters were implemented as per Sirius' suggestion and worked perfectly. They felt confident that for their first grand production, this station could withstand an attack by up to 3 Ha'tak, possibly more, at least long enough to retreat to hyper-space, not counting on what warships of their own they might have to mount a counter-offensive.
Having finished their work on the Ha'tak and witnessing the successful start of the building project, the team ringed down to the planet.
.ring transport.
The Trio decked out in their uniform's sporting Arm Virga's on both arms, appeared in the clearing near the mountain range that their scanners detected had rich veins of naquadah and trinium.
Harry waved his arm and several cargo containers of the refining nano-bots rang down and he started on setting up their instructions to construct their refinery building and equipment.
Hermione waved her arm and several cargo containers of the mining nano-bots rang down and she started on setting up their instructions to begin constructing mines and associated equipment.
Sirius waved his arm and several cargo containers full of cloak emitters and power generators rang down and he began levitating them to their positions and installing them to hide the bulk of the mining outpost.
About an hour later, all processes were well underway and the team confirmed all their nano-bots were functioning as expected and they watched as the first set of nano-bots penetrated the mountain side in search of ore.
The last thing they did is the team set up a series of surveillance drones set to constantly monitor certain aspects of the mining and refining programs, they then rang back up to the Ha'tak and established a long range communication device in the Ha'taks remaining stargate. They then implemented several reconnaissance drones to monitor the station construction process and one to maintain constant monitoring at the long range communication device. Harry then linked all three pairs of their Arm Virga's to the main surveillance drone stationed at the stargate long range communication device.
With this, they will be able to maintain constant real-time status via the gate network from wherever they are on Earth using the Al'kesh surveillance drone and long range communication device as a relay to the Ha'tak long range communication device and it's surveillance drone and through the master-slave surveillance drone network they setup, receive status from the ground-station drones watching the monitoring operation as well. This is audio status only of course unless they are on the Al'kesh where they can then receive the visual feed.
With that all accomplished they rang down to Laira's village.
.ring transport.
"Whoa, did you see that!" several village children scurried about, pointing at the Shawdonians.
"Hello everyone, would someone please inform Laira that we are back?" asked Orion.
"Hello Orion and friends, Fair day." said Laira.
Hugh whispered to Emma, "you notice how we are just 'Orion's friends when we come around here?" said Hugh. Emma quietly giggled in response.
"Hello again my fair lady," Orion said as he smoothly took Laira's hand again and kissed it, lingering a bit longer this time than he did the first.
"Well, I see you all made another spectacular entrance. I would think that if any of our people doubted that you all had miraculous machines and strange powers, after that display they would have no more doubts." said Laira.
"It is our pleasure to perform." said Orion with a wicked grin.
"Oh dear lord" Emma whispered to Hugh, "he is laying it on think, isn't he?"
"Will you all have time to visit me in my home for an evening meal before you leave again?" asked Laira.
"It will be our pleasure," said Orion. "Please lead the way."
...
Sitting around dinner, the Trio in this instance led by Orion 'the Casanova', explained that they have finished the startup phase of the construction of their settlement. They explained that this settlement is really in two parts, the one on the planet is a series of advanced miniature machines that will mine and refine rare metals that they need for manufacturing, this naquadah and trinium that the planet has in abundance. And the other is a large space station in orbit of the planet where they will live most of the time when they are in this region of space, and where they will construct new space ships to explore the galaxy with.
"So, when you are here, you really won't be on the planet much, you'll be in your space station?" asked Laira.
"Won't we get to see you much or visit?" continued Laira.
"Oh yes, we will visit as often as you would like us to, so long as we don't wear out our welcome. It's just that our primary homes will be in the station and that is where we will do the bulk of our work. Also, this is only the beginning. For some time, possibly a few years yet, we will be traveling back and forth a lot from here to our home planet, we still have a lot of work to do back there too." said Mione, hoping to strike up a friendship of her own with Laira.
"Maybe someday when we can settle in one place permanently we might decide to build some actual living arrangements on the surface." continued Mione.
"That would be nice." said Laira.
"Hey Miss Emma," started Naytha, Garan's girlfriend. "Last time you were here you didn't wear those pretty arm bracelets. What are they for?" asked Naytha.
"Oh, these are special arm bands that allow us to remotely control a lot of our technology, they also allow us to channel or focus some of our special abilities, and if we get into danger, we can use them to protect ourselves or to fight back." answered Emma.
"Ooh. What kind of special abilities?" said Garan.
"Can we tell them Hugh?" asked Emma.
"I don't see why not, they are not from our world, the statute of secrecy doesn't apply to them, in my opinion." answered Hugh.
"Well, you will probably hardly believe me anyway, but we can show you if you like. What I and my friends can do is called 'magic' on our world. These are special abilities that can affect a wide range of things, too many to easily name really; and only 1 in 6,000 people born on our world have these abilities. Hugh, Orion, and I and John who you met last time come from a sub-culture on our world of only about 1 million of us who have these extra abilities out of the roughly 6 billion on our planet, so you can see how rare it really is even on our world. To you it will seem like we can alter reality and in some cases I suppose that is actually true. Do you want to see?" said Emma.
"Yes!" said Naytha.
Emma raised her right hand, willed the hard-point of her Arm Virga to extend and willed a little glow of magic energy into her palm, then she waved her hand and conjured a bouquet of roses. She didn't have to make all the show of course, but did so just for the demonstration.
"Wow! awesome." both kids said.
"Aw, Emma, you should've saved that for me, I was going to conjure roses for the beautiful Laira here." said Orion.
To which Laira finally responded with a blush.
"I think we should show them something that will really blow their minds," said Harry.
Mentally over the Arm Virga's he said, "let's show them each of our animagus forms."
"Okay," they both replied.
"Alright, you might not want to believe your eyes for this one, but this ability is even uncommon among our magical people. But, it is something the three of us have mastered. We can shape-shift into an animal form. I don't know if you have any of these type of animals on Edora or not, but Orion there is a dog, which you could probably already figure out from his personality if you know what they are. I am an Eagle Owl, and Hugh is a Peregrine Falcon. Both of Hugh and my forms are birds, Hugh's is the fastest type of bird on our planet, so when he is in this form we call him 'Swift' and my form of an Owl is symbolized for wisdom so they call me 'Sage' in that form, and Orion's dog form is called 'Padfoot.'"
Then all three simultaneously transformed into their respective animagi.
"Oh...ancestors. This is incredible." exclaimed Laira.
Naytha and Garan each reached out to touch Emma and Hugh respectively, and they patted their heads and ran their hands over their soft feathers. Laira, petted Padfoot and he snuggled his nose up on her, placed his chin in her lap and she pet him.
When Naytha and Garan were done trying to pet Swift and Sage, they took flight. Swift rising to a very high altitude and then dive bombing at almost 200mph then suddenly pulling out of the dive right in front of Garan. Sage just landed quietly then appeared to look reproachfully at Swift and said 'Hoot' at which Padfoot transformed back and laughed uproariously at them. Then Swift and Sage transformed back too.
"So, did you like the show?" asked Emma.
"Oh my yes. You people certainly are remarkable. You know if you had come here and not told us tales that made you seem like ordinary people my people probably would have taken you for some kind of gods or something. None of us have ever heard or seen anything like this." said Laira.
"So, you have never heard of or seen the Goa'uld who go around the galaxy using advanced technology to masquerade as gods? Those aliens like to enslave human civilizations like mine or yours to do their bidding." asked Hugh.
"No. We've never had visitors from outside our world until you arrived. But our ancestors passed down tales to us about how we originally came to this world through the stone ring, so long ago no one here can remember and no tales tell of when either." answered Laira.
"Well, we know of the Goa'uld and have access to some of their old databases of information. We know that they -do- know of this world and of it's riches in these rare metals that we came here to mine. We believe that the only reason they have not come here to settle this place and to mine it is because of the meteor showers you have each year, which every 150 years or so become huge catastrophic asteroid impacts that devastate the surface of the planet." continued Hugh.
"In fact, it is because of that history that we didn't expect to find any people living here when we first came. We expected to find an unpopulated planet. I am curious how your people survive this massive asteroid shower every 150 years?" asked Hugh.
"Well Hugh, we don't know about this massive asteroid shower you talk about that devastates the surface. But, every year we have what we call the 'fire rain'. It is an annual celebration, we hold a festival and we all sit out and watch heavens and watch the show, it is a spectacular thing to witness." said Laira.
"And you know of no time where every 150 year or so this happens and instead of it being a mere light show it becomes something far worse that impacts the planet?" asked Emma, getting concerned now.
"Well, no. I mean none of us here are that old of course. We have an oral tradition that about 147 years ago something caused many of our ancestors houses to burn and crops to be destroyed. But none of us remember any details of it." said Laira.
"Well, I don't mean to alarm you, and we might be wrong, our information is quite dated, but from what you said I would deduce that the next major event will occur then in about 3 years. You see the reason Edora experiences this beautiful meteor shower each year is due to the planets orbit around your sun and your position relative to a massive asteroid belt that exists in your star system which also orbits your son. Every 150 years the orbits of Edora and the asteroid belt align in such a way as to cause the planet to travel directly through the heart of the asteroid belt on it's orbit. This is what causes much worse asteroid events each time this happens." said Hugh.
"Well, one of the things we did to protect ourselves from this phenomenon is that we built special energy shields and many weapons on our station so that if and when these asteroids come, the station can protect itself from them." concluded Hugh.
"If your station can protect itself, can you maybe protect us too if this happens?" asked Laira.
"Well, not as it is now except of course, we could on short notice transport all of your village population to the station in mere minutes. There are only 200 of you and our station can comfortably support 1,000. So, if it comes to that, we would do that to help you. Beyond that, we will study this some more, look further at your planets history and see if we can come up with a more proactive solution to help you, does that sound good?" said Hugh.
"That would be great Hugh, thanks. I will still hope that you are wrong though." said Laira.
"You and me both." said Hugh.
"Well Laira, we appreciate your hospitality but we must be getting back home. Our operation here will construct itself automatically while we are gone but we will probably be away for a while. If you want I will leave this spare reconnaissance drone here with you. You can just keep it locked in a closet or something so it's not in your way or violating your privacy, but it would be a good way for you to contact us if you have any trouble. You just need to stand in front of it and talk to it, asking to speak to one of us and someone will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Okay?" said Hugh.
"I will take you up on that offer Hugh. Thank you very much." answered Laira.
"Okay, until next time. Fair day." said Hugh.
"Travel well and fair day." said Laira, who gave Orion a quick hug goodbye as they left.
Emma whispered to Hugh, "there is something definitely going on there I think."
.ring transport.
"Okay, we're all set then? Let's go home." said Harry.
Then they took the stargate back home to get ready to start their final year at Hogwarts.
August 30, 1997.
Harry, Hermione, and Sirius returned home. They told their tales to Remus, Dora, Wendell, and Monica; and handed out their own personal Arm Virga to each of them and showed them how to use it. Monica and Wendell were excited to be more a part of this now with their own 'star trek gizmos'. Harry made them re-double their promises to keep this all very secret and not to show off these devices or tell anyone they have them. They are only for their personal use while they are at Shawdon Woods or on one of their ships.
The group got a big laugh when Remus told them, "Hey did you guys forget something that happens every year on July 31st?" asked Remus.
"No, why?" asked Harry.
"Well, you were sort of out of the star system on your birthday and well, several people including Professor Dumbledore came by to visit for your birthday and you weren't around...and no amount of scrying for you could find you either when we made up a quick little story on the spot that Sirius took you and Hermione for a month long vacation. But we weren't quick enough to think of where and we sort of stumbled over trying to answer that. At the end I don't think anyone believe that story." said Remus.
"And a fair few owls were reported unable to deliver packages to one Harry Potter, as he didn't appear to exist anymore as far as they were concerned. Oh, there was a bit of an uproar. Then there was the bit that despite your drifting apart from Ron and Ginny over the past year, they tried to throw you a surprise birthday party anyway Harry, and of course you were not up for the surprise, once again hastily made up stories didn't seem to pass much muster. So, I figure that now that you're back you might experience some kind of inundation. I don't know what exactly, but you might want to duck if you see an owl coming your way." concluded Remus.
A/N: Review Responses
