Author's note:
I'm sorry for the delay, but this chapter really cracked my head. It's only a merger chapter so not much action, but I needed to add it.
Chapter Nine
Palos star system – Terran Federation's space
Palos Replication Complex
March 29, 2011
Beyond the run-away star, the Milky Way could be seen. It didn't look bigger than 10 centimeters from the star's perspective. This had given the star a lonely past; as it was surrounded only by the void of intergalactic space. Now though, it was no longer alone. Its new companions were small, and Palos burned brightly, dwarfing and dimming them, but there they were. Zooming in a little, one could clearly see thirty four small dots in the orbit of Palos, three bigger than the other thirty one. The biggest of the dots was the TFS-41 Enyo, followed by the first Saint Mary class intergalactic carrier, and finally the first Palos replication facility or PRF-1. The remaining thirty one smaller particles were Columbus class exploration vessels.
From a distance it didn't looked as if anything was going on around them, but, getting a closer look, one could clearly see that there was not only activity, but a lot of it. The Enyo was relatively close to PRF-1, but still more than twenty kilometers away from it, and the lone ship had its external replication system working at full power creating PRF-2. On the other side, PRF-1 was working with even greater power than could be handled by the Achilles class vessel. The facility was built with experience gained from the Enyalius facility. It was bigger, it had nearly eight times Enyalius' power out-put, and was heavily armed. But it was barely more than a big stack of GENFRs reactors, and transporter and replication emitters. With the power it possessed it could produce a Ha'tak III in a little more than half an hour, and a Columbus in one. While the exploration ship had more than 8 times less volume than a Ha'tak, the amount and density of the liquid Naquada fuel it carried made it twice as massive.
On top of PRF-1 the bright white light of replication emitters was producing the thirty second Columbus class exploration vessel, and below it the bright blue light of transporter emitters was moving matter from the star into the exploration vessel. It took an hour, and the last Columbus required to max out the first Saint Mary was ready.
TFS-41 Enyo …
"Sir! The last Columbus is ready," said Lieutenant John Perhar from his sensor station.
"Good." said Captain Woodruff.
"Sir! We have a message from PRF-1. They say that the Columbus AI activation and testing is done, and the vessel reports all systems operational. They are requesting permission to activate combined AI mode for Saint Mary integration."
"Tell PRF-1 control that they are green on Columbus and Saint Mary integration."
The message was sent, and while PRF-1 had already started replication of a second Saint Mary class carrier, the first one was being slowly approached by the first thirty two Columbus. The exploration vessels slowly approached their carrier at the maximum power of their extremely inefficient ion propulsion. It took time, but the explorers reached their designated latching positions, and started using thrusters to make the final trajectory adjustments to safely latch themselves into the Carrier.
After a few more minutes, all the Columbus were finally integrated into the Saint Mary, and the thirty two AIs linked each other into a single one, immediately setting the Naquada reactors at full power. The energy started flowing into the carrier's hyper-drive unit, and a few seconds later the ship entered hyperspace and set a course to the Pegasus Galaxy.
On board the Enyo, Perhar addressed the Captain. "Sir, the Saint Mary has entered hyperspace, and the AI has linked itself to Exploration Command."
"Good. They'll take it from there. If everything works fine, in a few months there will be more Achilles assigned for PRF replication duties, and some of those facilities may also be tasked into producing more of them. If the communication system design proves adequate to handle the requirements from all those Columbus, then will be seeing the exponential growth of this Complex." finished the Captain.
Pegasus Galaxy – 327 light years beyond the rim.
Half an hour later...
The hyperspace vortex had just closed. The Saint Mary carrier made the transit to Pegasus, and the transition to normal space without any incident. The combined AI relinquished control, and the thirty two Columbus regained their autonomy. The ships started detaching themselves from the carrier. First, the eight ships at the front, followed by the eight behind them, and so on. It took more time for the exploration vessels to detach from the carrier and reach a safe distance than it took the Saint Mary to reach Pegasus from Palos.
The thirty two explorers made a sphere of ships more than 100 km in diameter around the Saint Mary. All their sensors were active and scanning the surrounding space for any intruder. They all sent the self destruct signal, even though only one was required to activate it. From the outside of the carrier no explosion was seen, but soon the central part of the ship where the advance hyper-drive unit was located collapsed on itself, and soon the entire 1.2 km long ship started disintegrating into the small singularity, which absorbed all its matter.
The Columbus had positioned themselves at a safe distance, but even there they had felt the gravitational strength of the singularity. Their active sensor systems had been heavily distorted, but their passive ones, including their opticals were still operational, and the AIs had seen the disposal of their carrier, and were then ready to depart. One after another the ships started entering hyperspace. First, a total of fourteen Columbus with their Command and Control module headed towards their designated areas to created a sphere around the galaxy to manage every Columbus explorer. Second, a total of sixteen Columbus with satellite modules made their way into hyperspace and headed towards Pegasus to start their long exploration mission. Last, a single Columbus with the Communications module entered hyperspace to settle itself in another redundant area close to Pegasus.
The last communication Columbus would stay until the singularity had evaporated into the surrounding space, and once that was done, it would enter hyperspace to locate itself in another area close to Pegasus. It could stay there, but if someone had sensors powerful or advanced enough to detect faster than light particles or emissions filtered to hyperspace from the singularity, it was better for the ship not to be present if they arrived.
For Pegasus this was not a concern, as there were no known race capable of doing so, but it was protocol. The Federation didn't know what was beyond known space, and they couldn't risk being exposed to an unknown hostile race.
The disposal of the Saint Mary class carriers was considered a waste for many, but if there was a possibility for an advanced hostile race to piggyback on it towards Federation space, the consequences could be catastrophic. That was why the Saint Mary was designed with only a hyper-drive unit and dependent on the carried Columbus for operation, and was also why they were to be disposed off. The Federation had made this consideration thinking of Replicators. One could easily attach itself to a carrier, and bring an extremely serious threat to the Milky Way. While Federation was confident of winning a war with a Replicator-level threat, human imagination dictated that potential threats could be far worse. That was the reason for making them disposable. Once the exploration vessels left our space, there was no coming back for them.
Milky Way Galaxy – Terran Federation space
Hyperspace – Near Sol star system
TFS-70 Orion – Achilles class
April 7, 2011
The Orion had been acting as fast response ship in orbit of Earth. The hyperspace listening satellite network had detected a hyperspace vortex opening in a sector were no Jaffa or Terran vessel was known to be operational. Terran Federation Command had dispatched the Orion to verify the identity of the unknown contact, a contact that was inferred from the hyperspace opening.
Lieutenant Commander Stoletov, who had been on-board the Musashi during the RS-27 crisis situation, was walking beside Captain Cassie McCall, both clad in CAES (Combat Armor Exo Skeleton) as it was common practice in fast response ship for every crew member to use one. They were heading for the Flag Bridge, also called Battle Bridge.
"I'm almost certain it's a Lucian Ha'tak. I want your teams ready for boarding action, Lieutenant Commander." said Captain McCall.
"Yes, Ma'am. They're already assembled." replied Stoletov, just when they where arriving at the first check point, which protected by two guards and the standard security systems, including a massive shielded blast door. "I have assigned some additional crew members as backup, just in case we encounter a strong presence of Lucian personnel on board." he added.
Captain McCall handled the standard authentication process to access the Flag bridge corridor, and saying as the shield went down and the massive doors started opening. "As many as you need Lieutenant Commander. Just secure that ship fast and safely. Since the deployment of the Hyperspace Listening Satellites, we have captured more than two dozen Lucian vessels without complications. Still, I don't want your team to underestimate a threat."
"We never do, Captain." said Stoletov as they walked through the Flag bridge access corridor to the second checkpoint that led directly to the Flag Bridge. The two of them passed through the second set of shielded doors after inputting their corresponding authentication algorithms.
"Bridge, this is the Captain. I have arrived on the Flag Bridge, and I'm assuming command." said the Captain through her CAES mind inter-phase, quickly received an acknowledgment in reply from her XO. She immediately started filtering data from the combat information system, and knew that the Orion had crossed the thousands of light years between Earth and the contact in very short time. Her XO had already detected 'said contact' and was shadowing the vessel under cloak. As she suspected, it was a Ha'tak, and the passive sensors were identifying it as a standard one. She knew that the Jaffa had all of their standard models at the front with the Aschen, or en-route towards it. This was definitely a Lucian Ha'tak, or if the Goa'uld were still out there, possibly one of theirs.
"Lieutenant Commander, you know the drill. As soon as we force the Ha'tak into normal space, we'll take out their shields and beam your teams over immediately. Inform me when you are ready, so that we may begin the operation."
"Yes, Captain." said Stoletov, saluting, turning around, and moving towards the access corridor.
Several minutes later, the Captain received confirmation and gave the order to begin. "Ten to one for the Flag Bridge dilation field Lieutenant. Commence the operation."
The dilation field inside the Flag Bridge was activated with a ten second inside against one second outside configuration to allow for ease of coordination. The Orion positioned itself in front of the Ha'tak.
"Prepare tractor beam and ready the ship for transition." ordered the Captain while her crew focused on the task at hand. They had done this several times, and mastered the procedure. No input was required from the Captain even though she still gave it.
Lucian Ha'tak Pel'tak ...
"We have lost every single Ha'tak that has entered hyperspace. Not a single one was able to send any kind of transmission as to the reason of their disappearance. This is the last ship we have remaining. I have said over and over that we should have stopped Ha'tak operations until we are able to shed some light into what's happening." Varro said to Kiva and Dannic.
"I'm tired of waiting for incompetents to shed the light you so much seek, Varro. I should have done this long ago. We'll now see what mystery beholds us, or if its only an internal power play." replied Kiva in a suspecting tone.
"An internal power play? What are you talking about?" asked Varro, while Dannic turned his eyes to Kiva frowning.
"After we lost the first few ships after entering hyperspace, I assigned you two to secure bridge and engineering positions on our remaining ships with loyal members. I'm now beginning to think that that was probably the decision you wanted me to make. Is it possible that this situation was planned by both of you to remove me from command?" Kiva demanded clearly paranoid. The crumbling of the Lucian alliance under her command had deeply affected her.
"What?" yelped Varro.
"Are you questioning my loyalty?" snarled Dannic.
Kiva pressed a button on her command chair, and four guards entered the Pel'tak weapons trained on both Varro and Dannic.
"We'll soon see if I'm wrong, and for your sakes you had better hope I am. Otherwise, once we reach our destination, I'll ask you both to surrender the location of my Ha'taks, or I'll torture that information out of you." she finished.
"You can't possibly think we had anything to do with that." Varro roared.
"Oh! But I can, and I ..." Kiva couldn't finish her answer when a bright light filtered through the main window, and the ship rocked as if being struck by something. Immediately a Hyperspace vortex formed in front of them, and her ship was forced to transition to normal space in the void between stars.
The vortex closed, and the Orion released the tractor beam. At the same time, as four secondary fusion beams struck the Ha'tak shield in non adaptive configuration, and on an angle that didn't compromised the Lucian vessel. The shields of the Ha'tak were set at low power to avoid hyperspace radiation and were unable to hold even a second against the strength of the secondary beams of the human ship. The beams buckled the shields and went on safely into space without hitting the structure.
Inside the Lucian Pel'tak four flashes of light appeared on its four corners, but Kiva was only able to see some blue pulses hit her guards, the operator, Varro and Dannic. Not a second later she watched with a bewildered and confused face as one of the blue pulses headed her way, and then nothing.
TFS-70 Orion …
Captain McCall didn't need to hear or ask for a report, as she had the relevant information being filtered into her CAES' combat information inter-phase. She knew that the Ha'tak was secured, and that the internal sensors of the Orion had identified the position of every Lucian crew member, and its transporter system was already working into securing them into the Lucian ship's brig.
"Lieutenant, tractor the ship and set a course for the Alpha Site." ordered the Captain.
"Yes Ma'am." replied the helm officer.
The Orion activated its tractor beam on the Ha'tak, and a few seconds later entered hyperspace. The ship traveled with the Lucian vessel under tow for several thousand light years, and reached the star system where the Alpha Site was located in less than a minute. A few second later, it entered orbit of the Alpha Site with the Ha'tak in tow, and released it close to three other Ha'taks. Those Ha'taks were being prepared as those that preceded them for delivery to the FJN, as the Federation had no need of captured Lucian Alliance motherships.
Captain McCall sighed inside her CAES, and turned to her sensor officer. "Lieutenant, I want that ship scanned to its bones before deactivating our jammers. I don't want any trojan beacon system activating." she said referring to previous Lucian's attempts of installing beacons to locate their missing ships after several of them had been lost. Those attempts had met with failure as the sensors installed on the Achilles class vessels were quite capable of detecting them, and adding that they scanned the entire ship and compared it to those the Federation were replicating for the FJN, they were able to quickly identify anything that was different or out of place. It took some time, as every Goa'uld/Jaffa made Ha'tak had little differences between them that made them unique, but it wasn't hard to do.
The Orion stayed in orbit while its crew completed the scanning/cleaning operation. After that, they created an inverted dilation field covering a small empty area of one of the hangars, and transferred the unconscious Lucian personnel inside it. The field had a configuration of one minute outside for every second inside, that way they guaranteed that their current prisoners weren't waking up until they reached the rehabilitation facility.
The Captain received the all green from the Lucian crew transfer, and she turned to the navigation officer. "Helm, set a course for the rehabilitation facility." Then to the communication officer. "Inform the Alpha site that they now have control over the Ha'tak."
"Yes, Captain." answered both officers not in unison.
The Orion broke orbit of the planet and entered orbit of one of its moons. The smallest of the two moons currently orbiting the planet where the Alpha Site was located, which hadn't been named yet, was the location of the experimental rehabilitation facility. The ship positioned itself above it in a geostationary orbit.
The rehabilitation facility was based on the Tier 1 Research Stations. It had the same defensive and offensive systems used in them, but it had some differences including higher tier levels of technology. The main one, was that it was prepared to function like a starship, as it was in a barren moon without atmosphere. There were no windows, and it was hermetic. It was completely sealed off. Inside it, the layout of the base was the same, but the equipment was completely different. Many rooms were filled with horizontal stasis chambers stacked one after another, with more than 100 individual units per room. The facility had the capacity to hold more than a thousand people in stasis, and almost 70 percent of the pods were in use with Lucian Alliance personnel held in stasis.
Other rooms were made into super computer spaces, giving the base one of the strongest processing power in the Federation. The computing strength was required to operate the simulation environment. They were similar to simulator units employed by Terran Federation Personnel, with the difference that the mind-computer inter-phase was extremely boosted from the computer side. The amount of processing power allowed for an entire life worth of simulated living experience in under an hour of normal time.
The process of rehabilitation started when the prisoners, which in this facility were called patients, even though they were forced ones, had their memories downloaded upon arrival. They were then moved to the pods and placed in stasis. The facility had the capability of rehabilitating a total of four patients at the same time, so their memories were analyzed first for intelligence purposes and second for rehabilitation ones. The intelligence gathered was sent to TFI (Terran Federation Intelligence), and then used to determine the rehabilitation process to be followed.
Once the process was determined, the patient was released from stasis and moved to one of the four rehabilitation rooms. There they were connected in a bed to the mind-computer inter-phase, and were subject to live a whole life from being born to their deaths, only that their deaths will be similar to those they took. They were to have nurtured lives to give them meaning, but they would end them the same way they ended those of their victims to gain consciousness of their acts.
Each full life would only last for less than an hour of normal time, and in between them, the patient would be shown to a simulated personal quarters to reflect on what they had lived, while another one enters the simulation. The process would be repeated until their subconscious was able to break through their current way of thought, and into a peaceful life in which they'd gain the subconscious illumination required to stop the process.
For Lucian Alliance personnel, the process added one more variable. Once they had reached the level of subconscious illumination required to stop the process, they would have their simulated conscious memories removed, and be left only with their real life experience. They'd be placed in the simulators again mimicking their current life, letting their subconscious memories guide them out of the Lucian Alliance no matter the amount of time required. Once they left it, memories of going through a stargate with several others, with enough supplies, reaching a populated world, and going to rest for a while in the nearby woods would be added. Once that was done, they would be disconnected from the simulation and moved in an induced sleep towards the planet of their memories placed with sufficient supplies in the woods, where Terran personnel would wait under cloak until they awaken.
The rehabilitated person would then seek a life of meaning on its own, without having lost their current life memories. They, on their own way would have to live with the knowledge of what they had done, and try to meld with the local population to start a new life, or return to their worlds and families with the knowledge that the Lucian Alliance was extremely weakened and unlikely to act against them.
On the Orion, Captain McCall transferred command to her XO, and walked away from the Flag Bridge. Once outside the transporter shielded area of the Flag Bridge, which ended just a few meters away from the second shielded blast door coming from the bridge, she requested via her CAES' command link to be transported to the rehabilitation facility's command and control center. A flash of light took her away and materialized her into the facility's C5IS (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Combat systems, Intelligence and Simulators) Center.
"Captain McCall." said Commander David Telford standing besides the Captain of the facility. He was previously a Colonel before the new Terran Federation ranking convention.
She turned to look at the rank in his uniform and replied. "Commander."
"I'm David Telford. Terran Federation Intelligence. I'm assigned to counter Lucian Alliance operations with TFISOCOM, Ma'am" he added saluting, and referring to Terran Federation Intelligence Special Operations Command.
She saluted back. "At ease Commander. I thought that the TFI had only technicians in this base, and that the intel gathered was analyzed elsewhere. Are you adding an intel detachment here?" she asked in reply.
"No, Ma'am. But we do come here from time to time. I have also assembled a team to accompany you in freeing Lucian Alliance personnel." answered Telford.
She nodded and turned to the Captain. "Captain Ortega. It's good to see you again."
"Likewise, Captain." replied Captain Adolfo Ortega. An ex member of the Brazilian Army, he was Brazilian born, but from a Spanish Father, and an Italian Mother. He had a lot of experience in multicultural environments, and coupled with his high regards in the Brazilian army earned him his command on the rehabilitation facility.
"How many people have been rehabilitated?" asked Captain McCall.
"We'll have the hundred you are to free in a couple of hours." answered Telford.
"Most of them are good people who had been forced into joining the Alliance. They have only required a couple of simulated incarnations, mostly to gain the psychological strength to free themselves from the Alliance." added Captain Ortega. "But some of them are true monsters. We have one currently linked in," he said pointing to one of the monitors that showed patients in their beds. "that has been placed through more than 20 simulated lives, and he is barely showing signs of improvement. He has been linked for more than a day now."
"Was he someone important?" asked Captain McCall.
"A soldier named Simeon. He normally acts as body guard for high ranking Alliance members. But he had a very long history of atrocities well before joining." answered Captain Ortega.
"Was he in one of the ships captured by the Orion?" questioned McCall again.
"No. He was brought by the Orestes almost two months ago." stated Ortega.
"But he had knowledge of ground and space operations well beyond of individual Lucian commanders." added Telford.
"How so?" asked McCall frowning.
"He was constantly assigned between commanders. It seems he had a knack, for lets say questionable missions. Those that even the most hardened of Lucian soldiers would be unwilling to do. The good thing about all of this, is that his memory download proved crucial in dismembering the Alliance. As a matter of fact, if our intel is correct, and we strongly believe it is, the ship you just captured was the last one they possessed, and carried in it the last of their commanders." answered Telford. He then smiled and said. "It seems that you have just closed the Lucian Alliance chapter Ma'am."
"Thanks, Commander." said Captain McCall trying to sound matter-of-fact, but couldn't help to show a sheepish face.
She stayed until all transfer documents were signed, and then until the to-be-transferred Lucian personnel had been put out of stasis and into an induced sleep. She beamed directly into her quarters to change out of her CAES. Commander Telford stayed in the rehabilitation facility to verify that the top brass of the Alliance had indeed been finally captured. A total of 20 TFI Special Forces personnel also beamed into the Orion to accompany a total of 100 now ex-Lucian personnel, who had been put into a dilation field inside sleeping bags and their supplies.
The Orion entered hyperspace, and in less than a minute arrived to their first release planet, where it made the transition to normal space under cloak and behind a gas giant to mask its hyperspace vortex. The ship approached the gate equipped habitable planet, and settled into orbit. All the security precautions taken were not necessary as the planet held a very small human population, but protocol was protocol, and some of the other planets they had to venture to were Jaffa worlds, so it was better to play it safe, and avoid alienating an ally.
10 of the ex Lucian Alliance personnel plus 2 TFI special forces were beamed down inside some woods close to the gate. The ex Lucians were deployed in different sleeping positions, and the SpecForce units stayed close by under cloak to protect them during sleep. One by one they started waking. They gathered for a moment to inform the others what they were doing. Some returned to their homes, some started a new life on different planets, but all left the Lucian Alliance for good.
The Orion visited another 9 planets to deliver the remaining rehabilitated personnel, and ended its mission by returning to Earth.
Terran Federation Space – 21 light years from Sol
Gliese 892 star system – Stargate designation P4X-351
Icarus Base
June 21, 2011
The Icarus base planet was special in that it contained a solid Naquadria core. While solid Naquada cores weren't uncommon in planets originated from Super Nova explosions, as the elements created during such events ended up being very dense. Almost every world that contained some amount of Naquada in its crust would most surely have at least huge quantities in its core, or have a core completely made of it. What made P4X-351 special was that its core was almost completely made of the heavier and unstable Naquada isotope Naquadria, which was the reason it had been chosen for the location of Icarus base.
Naquadria was only produced during a Super Nova event, and because it was radioactive and unstable, it quickly decayed into Naquada after several hundred thousand years. This was the reason that only Naquada was found in nature; such planets had already lived at least several million years since its materials were formed in a Super Nova. The reason for P4X-351 especial condition was that the Naquadria contained in it was created after, by transforming its stable Naquada core through a strong interaction with several highly concentrated bursts of subatomic particles which triggered a chain reaction that catalyzed the conversion from Naquada.
The proximity to pulsars or to Nova or again Super Nova explosions in nearby system could release the amount of subatomic particle concentrations required to trigger such an event in crust contained Naquada, but not enough to reach the core. With P4X-351 that was not the case as there was nothing close by that could have triggered the event, and the Naquada in its core was shielded by several thousand kilometers worth of crust and mantle materials. That led to the belief that the Naquadria on the planet was formed through artificial means, and it was strongly suspected that the Ancients upon returning from Pegasus could have been responsible for creating the Naquadria with the intention of using its decomposition into neutrinos to power up a stargate to allow for very long connections. This suspicion was based on the fact that the facilities encountered on the planet were reminiscent of Ancient designs, and that the Stargate had a especial connection to a neutrino capture machine which channeled the energy into the gate.
Current Terran Federation knowledge through the use of the Asgard and Ancient repositories suggested that the use of extremely coherent streams of subatomic particles directed at the core could have triggered a Naquadria conversion event. But while the theory existed, the reality was that the Naquadria was there, theory or not.
Nearly a year ago, the base made its first dialing with a ninth chevron. They knew that the energy requirements for a connection of this type would be enormous as the Ancients wouldn't have bothered to do this while having ZPMs available to do the job. They estimated that the distance to the targeted stargate could be in the hundreds of millions of light years, and had determined that the core would stay stable for the entire dialing process. Little did they know that the distance was in the tens of billions.
It was a wise decision forced into the head of the operation, a Dr. Nicholas Rush by the Science and Technology Department., that before any attempt to dial was made, a force of Achilles class vessels would be deployed in orbit to be able to deploy a gravitic compression field. The same type of field used by the Asgard to collapse Halla's sun. It was deemed necessary in case the energy requirements were even bigger than what the core could handle, and it was this decision that barely saved the day. When the connection was made, it was obvious that the distance had been miscalculated tremendously, and the reactions in the core destabilized very fast. Only the immediate shut down of the gate, requiring a physical disconnection from the neutrino feed allowed for the planet to regain its stability, and only the gravitic compression field deployed by the Achilles class vessels allowed the Icarus base scientists enough time for the disconnection.
After the first dialing sequence, the team devoted its time to the study of the power management system, and concluded that the gate itself drew power from the core through the neutrino capture device which excited the core Naquadria into reacting upon itself in a cascading decomposition just like what happened in a GENFR reactor, with the difference that the Core's Naquadria was not in a state of plasma and was heavily contained by the massive pressures of the core. It needed a constant outside source to trigger the neutrino decomposition, and this was done through the neutrino capture device emitting subatomic particles into the core, and the more power the gate needed for the connection, the greater the amount of subatomic particles emitted into the core.
The neutrino capture device normally activated when the first chevron was dialed, and as more power was required, the device used the neutrinos received to increase the reaction even further by increasing the amount of subatomic particles sent into the core. The amount of Naquadria to Neutrino conversion process was so huge to dial at so great distances that the amount of energy released was stronger than the Core's pressure, and that was the reason why dialing the ninth chevron almost destroyed the planet.
The problem was with the use of a single Neutrino capture device, and even though such a device moved the stream of subatomic particles along the surface of the core, it was still limited to a single face. The solution was to install several other devices to cover the entire surface of the core, and then add several orbiting neutrino relay satellites to gather the energy captured by the devices and channel it into the Base grid and into the gate.
The solution proved somewhat successful as during the second trial they were able to keep the gate up for a minute until the instabilities started to slowly mount, requiring shut down of the gate to avoid the core reaction to spiral out of control.
During the months that followed, a low scale reconnaissance mission of what was now determined to be an Ancient vessel, was performed through the use of automated systems until a permanent solution to the instabilities could be found, and until a way to bring the crew back was also developed. It was this day that both solutions were going to be placed into effect.
Eli Wallace was sitting outside the base on one of the sand bags with his back to one of the cliff walls. He was admiring the view, and relaxing a little. He had a notebook on his lap with a page opened where one could see hundreds of formulas and algorithms. He normally used an electronic one, but he also liked to crunch numbers on paper, especially when he wanted a little nature time.
"So, Eli. What's all this fuss about the new toy you are installing?" asked Ensign Vanessa James, who used to be a Second Lieutenant before the Terran Federation new ranking convention.
"What? The stargate?" asked Eli in return.
"No, no. The little box they are connecting in the Stargate room." answered Vanessa.
Sub Lieutenant Matthew Scott laughed at this and added. "It's a stargate."
"No. The little box." stated Vanessa again.
"It's a stargate." replied Eli and Matthew at the same time, and laughed an instant later to their simultaneous answer.
"A stargate?" she turned to see Eli and then Matthew shrugging. "You are both kidding me right?"
"Hmm. Nope." they both answered in unison again, and laugh.
"Why would you want to install a stargate the size of a shoe box?" asked Vanessa.
"Well, it's actually micro sized, you would barely be able to see it. The rest are other type of systems necessary to move people back and forth."
"To move people back and forth. You are kidding me again right? But wait, wait. Why would you want to make a small stargate when you have a perfectly functional normal one?" asked Vanessa gain.
"Power requirements. The big one consumes a lot of energy." answered Eli.
"Why don't you install a ZPM. I know they are banned on populated worlds, but you could ask for a dispensation to use one here."
"Because we would need to install dozens of them if not hundreds" stated Eli.
"What? Why? They only needed one to dial Pegasus. How much more energy do you require to dial to that spaceship?" asked Vanessa in curious shock.
Eli turned some pages in his notebook, and passed it on Vanessa. "The first line is the amount of ZPM percentage per second we would consume to dial it, and the second is the amount of Naquadria in the core being converted into energy to do the same."
"Point one three five. Point one three five ZPMs per second to dial that ship?" read Vanessa from the notebook.
"Yes, and as I said we would need dozens or hundreds connected at the same time as we can't discharge one that fast, or it would explode taking the planet with it. Not to mention us." added Eli.
Vanessa read the second line, and added. "753 tonnes of Naquadria per second to do the same?"
"Yep. You now know why the planet trembles so much every time we dial that ship. It's not much compared to the mass of the planet, but the energy released threatens to overcome gravity which keeps the reaction in check. If we were to convert that Naquadria without gravity, the entire core would decompose itself in neutrinos in a massive explosion. If we are not careful, that is exactly what could happen." stated Eli.
"Well, then. It will still be better to use ZPMs." said Vanessa.
"If one malfunctions, it's 'Hasta la vista' bye, bye, planet. Bye, bye every one. Its better not to risk it if we have another way."
"I didn't know that we were using the same energy to dial that is required to destroy a planet every second" added Matthew shrugging, but still not too interested in the conversation.
"Oh, no. It's not the same. Not by a long shot. A ZPM could normally produce more or less 50.16 Yotta Joules of energy before it's depleted, which is almost equivalent to 12 million Giga tonnes worth of TNT, but you need more than 7,000,000 Yotta Joules to destroy a planet. That's more or less 140,000 ZPMs worth of energy. But the thing is that when one explodes, the dimensional breach created releases a far greater amount of energy that what it contains, and it could, in theory, wipe out even a small star."
"Ha! You just invented those numbers, right? No way you knew that from memory." said Vanessa with wide eyes.
Eli laughed a little. "Well, the numbers are not exact, as every planet would need a different amount of energy depending its composition, but talking about an Earth like planet it's a close guess."
"So why did they say during the Cold War, that we could have destroyed the world several times over with the nuclear weapons deployed by the States and the Soviets? If I'm correct we never got close to even matching a single ZPM." asked Matthew.
"They said that?" asked Eli with an incredulous face. "If they did, they might have been refering to the surface of the planet. You need a relatively small amount of energy to make a planet lifeless compared to destroying one. The weapons that the US and the Soviets fielded were probably enough to do that several times over, but destroy a planet? No where near the amount needed." answered Eli, and before he could continue the conversation his radio activated with Dr. Rush voice.
"Eli, we are about to begin."
Eli grabbed the radio while standing from the sand bag, and answered back. "I'm on my way." he turned to Vanessa and Matthew, and added. "Sorry guys, I have to go."
"I'm going with you." replied Matthew. "I'm curious if that micro mini gate will work."
"Ha! And I'm stuck with guard duty." Vanessa added while Matthew and Eli walked away from her shrugging. A few second later and they were out of view, and she added in a low voice watching the cliff. "What am I guarding here when there are Achilles in orbit. What? Birds?"
Eli and Matthew walked side by side through the corridors towards the gate room.
"So what's the difference in consumption from the normal gate to the mini one?" asked Matthew.
"More than 11 million times less. We'll be using a little more than 6 Peta Watts to keep it up. It's still a lot for a stargate of its size, but at least it won't strain the core of the planet, as we'll need to convert less than 100 grams of Naquadria per second to keep it up instead of the more than 700 tonnes with the other one, and it opens the possibility of using even ship-grade Naquada reactors to power it if we don't want to depend on this system. Two of the reactors used by the Daedalus class should be more than enough." answered Eli.
"11 million times less." said Matthew with a frown. "How big is it?"
"The one we are using are the same as those used on the Communication Columbus. They are 1 millimeter in diameter. We wanted to go for something even smaller to reduce power consumption, but even with replication beams, the magnetic energy conduits required to channel that amount of energy become difficult to create on such small scales. We could go nano scale, but it would require Tier 3 or above technology to do it, and that has not been authorized, as we have to deploy another mini gate to the Ancient ship." answered Eli.
"Eli! About time. Get to your station, and warn me on power fluctuations. I'll start the dialing sequence." said Rush in a business tone.
Eli shrugged to Matthew, and went to the power management station. "Ready." he said.
Rush initiated the dialing sequence, and before the stargate blossomed into life the first vibrations started being felt. The amount of Naquadria to neutrino conversion in the core was so great that the massive energy release literally vibrated the planet in its entirety. A few seconds later the characteristic unstable vortex was seen receding into the water like pool of a stargate connection.
"Now! Move it. We just have three minutes." barked Rush to a scientist controlling a special MALP that had the mini stargate 'shoe box' latched on top of it.
While the MALP started heading towards the stargate, Matthew asked Eli in a very low voice. "Why only three minutes?"
Eli was balancing the planetary wide neutrino-capture-subatomic-particle-emitter devices to reduce the stress on one face of the core, and increase the conversion on another, but as focused as he was he still answered. "A constant shaking can literally liquify the ground, and while we are safely in a rocky area, other parts of the planet could be affected, so we want to avoid damage to the ecosystem."
"Liquify? How is that possible?" asked Matthew again.
"Don't know. I'm not a Geologist, but on Earth there have been cases that when a strong earthquake lasts for more than 3 minutes, the ground starts taking the properties of a liquid, and that's when major land displacement happens. But I really don't know, you'll have to ask Andrea."
"Who?"
"Doctor Palmer," Eli saw Matthew's face and added. "Andrea Palmer, the geologist."
"Ah! Yeah. OK. But it doesn't matter, it was just passing curiosity, nothing more."
The MALP passed through the gate, and a few seconds later they started receiving telemetry from it. They saw the images of the ancient ship's gate room. There were several other MALPs reconnoitering the ship, and were not in sight. The mini gate MALP moved away from the normal gate to a safe distance, and sent a green signal back.
Not even two minutes had passed, and the gate was disconnected. Rush moved to the mini stargate console and said. "OK. I'm starting the dialing sequence."
The mini gate was inside a box equipped with a myriad of different systems including transporter emitters, and it looked from the outside like a CPU casing. Obviously one could not see if it was active, but still it was working. The two mini stargates were configured to work exclusively between each other.
They started receiving telemetry again from every MALP on the ship, and they focused on the image being received from the mini stargate MALP. The video feed showed the corridor in front of the unmanned vehicle.
"Eli. How's the power feed?" asked Rush.
It was obvious that the stress on the planet was nonexistent as there were no vibrations registering on the seismograph, but still Eli gave the scientific answer. "Holding at 5.93 Peta Watts. And there are no instabilities in the core. I think its working perfectly."
"OK. Prepare for transport test." said Rush putting a fully solved Rubik cube in front of the 'shoe box' emitter node. He moved towards a station manned by a transporter expert, and added. "OK. Lets do it."
The Rubik cube disappeared in a blue flash, and a couple seconds later reappeared in the video feed from the stargate MALP. The cube rested in the middle of the corridor completely unaware of having traveled billions of light years, more than two thirds of the way to the observable universe border.
Everybody cheered and clapped for success. But Rush knew it was just half of the problem solved. At 6 Peta Watts, it was probable that there wouldn't be a problem to dial back, but they just didn't know if the Ancient ship had the energy required to do so, so their solution included beaming things and people back and forth trough the same outgoing wormhole. Normal matter could only travel one way, but it was very well known that radio emissions could be bidirectional, and transporter beams comprised of subatomic particles were also not affected. The problem was that the Tier system didn't allow outside deployment of transporter or replication systems, as it was a very sensitive technology. Even the system deployed on Icarus was protected by at least one Achilles class vessel in orbit. So the thing was getting the transporter system installed in Icarus base to function on the Ancient ship. Transporting the matter and reassembling it on the other side was made with special Tier 1 sensors that made an accurate three dimensional map of the transporter area, and these coordinates were used by the transporter system on Icarus to be able to disassemble anything back for transport through the gate.
"OK. Lets see if we can bring it back" said Rush.
The transporter beam operator activated the system and the cube disappeared in another blue flash from the Ancient ship, and reappeared in Icarus stargate room as if nothing had happened. Rush picked up the solved Rubik cube, examined it before rising it to head level and addressing the other scientists. "Well. It seems we solved the problem." he said using the cube as an analogy. Every one laughed and started to celebrate.
Rush disconnected the connection and asked the transporter beam operator to run an analysis of the cube to verify if it was complete to what the operator answered looking at Rush in slight confusion. "I'm sorry Doctor, but the system failsafe would never have allowed re-materialization if the object was not fully reintegrated to the pre-de-materialitazion scan. I can guarantee you that the cube is exactly as it left."
Rush blushed a little, and said with a shrug. "I'm sorry, I'm not familiarized with the system. It seems I was too eager to ask."
"No problem, Doctor."
Three days passed, and the automated exploration of the Ancient ship was expanded with the added stargate connection time, as it could now be maintained at its maximum. But the more than one year of sporadic exploration using the normal gate had also allowed for good progress, and the ship had been deemed secure enough to initiate a low scale human exploration.
The team had been briefed and were preparing at the stargate room for transport to the Ancient ship. The first wave of exploration consisted of just eight people, four military officers and four scientists.
The military was led by Sub Lieutenant Matthew Scott. Ensigns Vanessa James, Ronald Greer, and Hunter Riley made the rest. The last two had been NCOs previously, but they had been commissioned through the use of the Asgard mind inter-phase as every military in the Federation was now conformed of professionals. They had been given the choice to join, and they did and were given the rank of Ensigns.
The four scientists had worked thoroughly during the past year under the leadership of Doctor Nicholas Rush. Doctors Lisa Park, Dale Volker, Jeremy Franklyn, and Engineer Adam Brody were tasked with verifying fundamental systems in the Ancient starship to determine the repair requirements to safely populate the vessel.
The mini gate locked, and after verifying with the deployed MALPs that the connection was secured, Sub Lieutenant Matthew Scott was beamed away, and appeared in a flash of blue light in the corridor in front of the Gate MALP. He instinctively went in a search pattern with his rifle, and after sensing that every thing was OK, the rest of the military followed. It took at least five minutes for them to move through the adjacent corridors near the gate room to verify that everything was clear, even if the MALPs had already done so, they still did it. After that the scientists followed, and one after the other started to receive the supplies required for the operation, including: Communication stones for emergency situations, rations, clothes, and every type of equipment that could be considered useful for such deployments.
Doctor Rush, who was shunned away from going into the Ancient ship in the first wave in order to better coordinate the repair of the Ancient vessel, made the last communication with the away team before the connection was cut. "Brody, the priority at this moment is to seal any area of the ship that is damaged in order to avoid leaking, and to analyze the life support system in order to get it fully operational. We'll get in contact again in twenty four hours, but we'll keep a constant guard in the communication stones for any emergencies. Once that's ready, we'll start sending the repair teams to get the ship to its prime."
"Understood, Doctor Rush. See you tomorrow." replied Adam.
"Good luck." finished Rush, and with that cut the connection, and left eight humans billions of light years away from Milky Way, and on the start of a new adventure.
Author's notes: (These notes are just for the McKays. O'Neills move on.)
- For the Destiny arc, I'll be using the following data for the Destiny's FTL drive:
Intergalactic speed of: 3,000 Light years per hour to justify the time it took to get from one galaxy to another (I'm considering 1,000,000 light years in 14 days just to get a number)
Galactic speed of: Variable depending on gravitic fields near the ship as I'm considering the drive susceptible to gravitic fields , but 6 Light years per hour average to justify for the time we saw destiny on the series inside a galaxy, and to not exceed the galactic drives of the Auroras, or only the smaller space used by the hyperdrives would have justify using them instead of the FTL drive.
I'll be considering Destiny at more less 37 billion light years away. 10 billion light years from the observable universe border. At that distance an Achilles could reach the Destiny in 257 days.
At this speeds, Destiny could be more than 100 times farther away than the supposed 93 billion light year diameter of the observable universe, but I'm considering it a 37 billion from its center to not mess up with things science hasn't got a good understanding. So to justify the ship being 37 billion instead of more than 10,000 billion light years away, I'm making the supposition that the ship moved in zig zag between galaxies, and made regular stops to refuel inside suns, explore planets via stargate, etc, etc, etc,.
If you want to see the information considered to reach this decision, please check the story's forum under: Distance to Destiny.
Especial thanks for Durabys, Midnighter 13, and kenise for helping me on this one.
- Power requirements to dial Destiny: I'm using a ZPM total power capacity of 50.16 Yotta Joules, and a total power requirement to dial destiny of 67.83 Zeta Watts, or the equivalent of 753 tonnes of naquadria per second in the planet core being converted to neutrinos, Or 0.135 ZPMs per second. How I got this is a very long explanation. But the short version is: I took the average energy on a lightning strike. I counted the lightning strikes that struck Atlantis when the big wave was coming. I multiplied that number by the average energy per lightining, and then divide this by the time we saw the shields up. That gave me the energy required to keep the shields up, I then multiplied that by the years the three ZPM kept the shields up under water, and divided that by three (the amount of zpms used) and that gave me the power of a ZPM.
From this I calculated many things, from the power of Wraith weapons (number of bolts hitting atlantis per seconds, and McKay saying that the half powerd ZPM would last two weeks tops, etc) to the energy required to dial Destiny. I calculated the energy to dial from Earth to Pegasus (which is too long to explain here) at around 5.5 exa watts per second or .00000011 percent of a ZPM per second. So if I make a linear growth in energy requirements, we have that if we consume 5.5 exa watts to travel 3,000,000 light years to Pegasus, then to travel 37,000,000,000 we need 67.83 Zeta Watts to dial Destiny or .135 percent of a ZPM per second. That means that the ZPM will only last for a little more than 12 minutes. That same power requirements will compare to 42,393 Achilles class vessels, so it justifies using the core of a planet.
- Especial thanks for Gryffinrider for the help in making this story readable.