A/N: So my sister got married on May 25th, so I was a bit more busy than usual in may, on top of that she had to go and sprain her ankle fairly badly the week before, meaning I needed to step up a bit more before and after. Add onto me trying to play the new Path of Exile league and then having to put down my second last pet, my cat Chemistry, I had little time/motivation to get around to editing this chapter which I sat on unedited for almost 3 weeks. Sorry but this was also my first fathers day since my dad passed away last year so it was tough. Anyways, hopefully I will have more time and motivation cause the next two chapters IMO are way more exciting.
S/N: So last interlude was fairly well received and I am happy to see that, as your remarks made getting this chapter done, a lot easier. That being said one reviewer mentioned my lack of good characterizations, and I am sorry for this as this is where I struggle the most. That being said if you would like some recommendations of authors who do a good job of it, look to I'mjusttryingtofindmyway, Greenchild24, Sage1988, or Noodlehammer, who all are great authors with awesome characterization and most have stories in similar genres/crossovers. Links to their profiles can be found under my Favorite Authors tab in my profile. All that being said there will be two more chapters coming for this story before I take a break from it to veggie for a bit and then work on my other story for a short time.
C/N: This chapter was quite a bit harder for me to get to feel good, and I am honestly still not quite pleased with it even though I rewrote a fairly large section of it to try and get it to come out a bit better. It also ended up being A LOT longer than expected so that added to the delay, as I originally had it at being around 10k words and was even a bit worried it was going to be too short. But after rewrites to try and get it to flow a bit better it ended up being quite a bit longer, though I did add some stuff as I like to have Harry POVs broken up with other things or at least different tasks. So he's not say jumping from one introspection to another, or technobabble to technobabble… ect.
19200 words, longest chapter so far I think.
Chapter 10
The day had finally come.
The day when he and his people took the next real step towards a greater future. Here at this spot, at this new stadium is where real change would occur. There was a lot of people here waiting for him in the stadium that had been built in the Capital on Argensis. It would act as the official podium for any major announcement made by him personally. The huge colosseum like structure was massive, and could house just under 250 thousand, with additional greenspace surrounding it for any who wish to view a projection of what was going on that covered its entire outside walls.
While it did take some artistic licence from the Roman Coliseum, it was definitely a modern building, with many of the amenities that one would expect in such a place. Unfortunately it really was not what he had been waiting on, instead it was ensuring the all the 'slaves' and Jaffa had been issued Armbands. Additionally the delay was to ensure that they had been transitioned from the traditional slave into the role of serfs over the last year because today they were going to finally get their emancipation along with a few other major announcements.
Today was the day that he was unofficially breaking off ties with the System Lord collective, not that they were going to be aware of that for some time. Hopefully such news will be extremely slow in making it to any of their views, and there may even be a real possibility with all of the major changes he had made to the security in his domain that such news may not reach them for years. This was his biggest worry, but any more delays would mean problems for him and his people further down the line, and it did not help that possessing such a large population of 'slaves' would not go over well with future or current trade partners such as the Rena people. Officially to the System Lords nothing would change, for however long that charade could be maintained.
So here he was standing just inside the large balcony that was connected to his massive private viewing lounge and refreshment area. It was honestly a little too large, but he would not complain, as it was the work of some of his new government officials and he was honestly fairly impressed with their overall achievements with the whole coliseum project. Of course he had given some input, but it was honestly only minor, and with a few pictures for aesthetic examples, they had gone to town and made a simply amazing structure. For those not able to make it, the event was being broadcast live through the public network for all citizens to view via their armband or other technology. Adding another video to the ever growing library now available through the EmpireNet for anyone's viewing pleasure.
Both Ana and Ishta were beside him giving him their silent support as they both seemed to have realized that he was somewhat nervous about this speech. Especially about the possible blowback with the mass emancipation that was going to occur. While their labour was not really an issue, it was the impact they may have negatively on his budding society as a whole. It probably could not whether a major negative upheaval yet, so he was crossing his fingers that such a thing did not occur today, or anytime soon. That being said he was most likely being a worrywart as Hermonie would have said, as there was little chance he felt of that happening.
Thankfully Gelon was watching from the side with some of his family, not actually on duty but here as one of his guests. It appeared that Gelon's daughter, Melina, had been blossoming under the new rules and opportunities offered by that very same society that will be changing for the better today. Personally he had been keeping an eye on the little tyke and continued his correspondence with her over their Armbands and encouraged her excitement about the sciences. It was extremely pleasing to see them together here today clearly happy as could be. He would try and ensure that as many of his people could enjoy something similar, as that opportunity had been rudely taken from him.
As if sensing his change in mood, Ana who had been monitoring her pad that was being constantly updated about the event, took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze in acknowledgment. Ishta generally refrained from these little expressions of their mutual love in public, however there were times where she performed public displays of affection that would have scandalized Ana if it had been her. Or at least turned her into a bright tomato, she still had that element of innocence that Ishta loved to poke fun at to make her blush.
It once again dawned on him just how much his life had improved since he had come to this reality. There simply had been so much happening that it was not often that he truly got to reflect on what he had gained in these short years here. It only reaffirmed to himself his personal goals of increasing his power, whether that was personal power or the might of great fleets manned by his people, he would see them to new heights. It was kinda poetic that it was then that Ana gave him the signal that they were ready for him, so he walked out and addressed the crowd. As soon as he made it to the edge of the balcony to look down on the crowds and those in the stands everyone went crazy with cheering. He put up his had to silence people and everyone quieted so quickly, it was almost magical. With that amusing thought he started his speech.
"Today I stand before you proud! Proud of what we all have worked towards and achieved in these two short years since I gained my enlightenment and evolved into a true godhood. Together we have gone from a pale imitation of a society, where many would not even make it through the year, to something to be proud of, where children have a future to look forward to, and parents can live long enough to see their great-grandchildren succeed. A society were one can work to better themselves within the bounds of the law, and not to have to fear oppression. To be assured a reasonable level of security to live such a life and to be able to easily meet one's own needs. These are important goals we are well on our way to achieving for all within our borders!
"While I as your god have contributed much to this social advancement, is important that we do not forget the impact that each and every person has made, especially for those who have and continue to work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure my dreams of the future become a reality. Greatest among those are my close personal assistants, my first prime and my partners that have ensured that this transition we have experienced recently has been as smooth as it could be. I am not perfect, nor am I all powerful, but by surrounding myself with those who truly strive to help us succeed, a great revolution has occurred in a short period of time.
"It is only right then that as a new society is forged, we should be differentiated from what was before, whether that was the Goa'uld System Lords, or that of being simply the domain of Pelops. Therefore I am honored to announce that from this day forth let our lands, air, and space be known as the Star Empire. An Imperium of like minded individuals that serve faithfully their empire and god, and in turn see theirs rights fought for and protected by their leaders, and most importantly by me, their Emperor. The Empire will ensure you do not have to bow down to the tyranny of the Goa'uld System Lord Collective any longer.
"It is today that I reaffirm my pledge I made to some of you nearly two years ago regarding the changes that would be coming to my domain, the now named Star Empire. It is in that vein that I believe that it is only fitting that all slaves within the empire should see this day as the day of their rebirth as full citizens of the Star Empire. For all who live in the Empire should be able to take pride in their home and what it stands for.
"That pride should be shared by all and not just the few who were born or raised in the right circumstances. There is plenty to go around in our expansive region of space, and if there comes a time where we need more, we simply need to grasp it. There are countless star systems out there to be added to our Empire that no one has claimed. There are numerous groups of people to add to our numbers, who still toil everyday under the lies of false gods and tyrants, but also dream about a better future.
"It is our duty to now ensure that we as a people continue to make strides forward towards improving our lives and that of the Empire as a whole. To create new wonders, develop new sciences, make new discoveries and boldly go where no one has gone before!
"Go now my people and rejoice! Rejoice in the fact that there is a bright future ahead for the Star Empire and therefore a bright future for all those that live within its borders." he exclaimed loudly before entering back into his private box. He could not even hear his own steps due to the extreme amounts of cheering and screams of excitement that was going on behind him in the stadium, and he imagined all over Argensis, and his other worlds similar sights were occurring. Surprising how loud 250,000 people could be.
Looking at Ana, he saw ecstatic she was. He could tell it was both for him and the newly minted Star Empire, but it was Ishta's beaming smile and quite out of character sure happiness that rolled off of her, that told him he had done the right thing. There would be tons of consequences to his actions today, but he felt that the good would far out weigh the bad.
Garsha made her way into the Tok'ra high council chambers and could see that the rest had already arrived. If the clear animosity in the air was anything to go by they had already started a heated discussion. She and her host could both understand were the short tempers were coming from, and they mainly had to do with their own failures to gain anymore information on the new Goa'uld that had appeared in the last few years named, Hariric.
His quite blatant displays of technologies they or no other Goa'uld possessed also alarmed her and the council. Though they have heard nothing from outside Hariric's domains, meaning that he was not using said technology to conquer new lands, yet. And that was the crux of the problem, past experiences showed them that trusting the Goa'uld was not something easily done, even if some of them had even been once Goa'uld themselves before joining the Tok'ra, and not actual descendants of Egeria.
That being said the initial reports from Jolinar, and even Delek had provided, did show a major shift in his stance on those serving him or even his own worship. However that was not what was the issue, the issue was that they have had no new intel in over six months, and nothing they did seemed to prove fruitful.
Their attempts to send more cloaked vessels to any of the planets formally known to be under the control of either Pelops or Moloch proved to be failures with them losing one of them, something they could not afford to do so, and having the other turn aways. Thankfully the pilot of the downed cloaked vessel was returned to them, and the event showed to them that Hariric now had effective means to not only see through Goa'uld cloaks, but to target and shoot down a fast moving cloaked ship. The few cloak vessels they had could not be wasted like this, as even obtaining cloaks was something still difficult as they were tightly controlled by Ra before his demise.
The fact that their operative was sent back to them with only a few chuckles and warnings not to do so in the future as they may be putting their pilots at risk to defences being activated on them. With that a few quick flybys of a few planets of those two former Goa'uld, showed that Lord Hariric has seemed to have moved most of his people to his throneworld, and even shut down mining operations most of the planets.
Most interestingly and out of character for most Goa'uld, the planets had not abandoned, as new defences could be seen being built on nearly every planets around the Chappa'ai. It was these defences that had shot down their second pilot. Unfortunately the fact that they had so little information stemmed from the fact that they had lost their own agent, Jolinar who was their only contact with Lord Hariric.
Jolinar had been on a mission infiltrating Cronus for some time, and was currently out of contact and had failed to checkin on her last few scheduled routine contacts. Garshaw personally feared the worst, as there were few reasons for her not to be able to contact them that did not involve her imminent death at the hands of a Goa'uld.
"I am telling you he is the greatest threat the Tok'ra have faced since its founding!" Delek said to Councillor Ro'gar with quite a bit of volume in his voice. Garshaw did not even need to ask who he was referring to, as it was clear that it was Lord Hariric. Ever since Jolinar had returned with Delek in the, admittedly cute puppy form, he has hated anything to do with Hariric since, and won't admit to anything the Goa'uld does as good. Even if she and other councilors could see how his presence meant a large increase in the standard of living for his people, even the slaves.
This was one of the major hurdles they faced when discussing Hariric, being that he clearly was not the same as other Goa'uld, but did not seem to want to join them or give up his rule as they had all done. It was quite vexing, and the insuring arguments between her fellow Tok'ra had brought on a constant headache for herself and her host.
"He has done nothing but be courteous to the Tok'ra. Even when admittedly we did not deserve that level of peaceful interaction." replied Ro'gar calmly to Delek, clearly alluding to Delek's own attempts at espionage or worse when he got caught and lost them the possible element of surprise of using cloaked vessels, as they had not worked since. Ro'gar's calm and collected response seemed to be winning him far more support amongst the other councilors than Delek's abrasive attitude. That being said there were still a few who clearly supported whatever it was Delek was proposing, even if he didn't seem to even know himself.
"Councillors." she said as she finally announced her presence as she took her spot in the room. They all stood behind simple standing crystalline desks that were grown when the room was created, these were where they could have tablets or other devices if needed. However most were empty beside a few tablets. "We are here to discuss our missing operative, Jolinar." she said with an obvious stern warning that their previous discussion was over now that they were on official business.
With that unfortunately the routine discussion they had whenever one their operatives go missing or they lose contact, started. It was basically them running down any avenue of investigation, with each councilor sounding off on their groups intel that they had gained on the topic, or didn't gain. Sadly it seemed that there was little to go on, and nothing had panned out. Meaning that Jolinar was either still on the run and hiding, or she had been captured and killed, and whoever did the deed was keeping quiet about it. Which was not something that a Goa'uld would typically do. Especially for Jolinar who had a bit of a reputation amongst the Goa'uld, being a former one herself.
With the reason for them conversing being finished sadly far too quickly for Garshaw's liking, the discussion devolved back onto the topic of Hariric. Personally she was in the middle of the discussion, as she did see the good Lord Hariric was trying to enact, but also understood some of the fears the Delek and his group had. The power or technology he displayed to be able to turn someone into an animal, and even allow them to consciously remember the event was, to put it simply, astounding.
Some of the other technologies, such as the frustrating ability he seemed to be able to see through Goa'uld cloaks. Cloaks were something that only the council even knew about at the moment still, as it was a technology not widely spread amongst the Goa'uld or the Tok'ra yet because of Ra's careful controls on it's development. The Tok'ra simply had captured too few cloaked cargo vessels to bother letting others know about them yet. Something that may and probably will change in the near future with the Goa'uld making teach advances and the Tok'ra having to make changes in response. Something new was mentioned around the issue of Hariric that brought Garshaw out of her personal musings.
"We may possibly be able to in the future gain volunteer hosts from amongst Lord Hariric's people." Supreme High Councilor Per'sus said intriguing them all and getting looks of interest from a few of the more close minded councliers. "Think about it. If it is true that Lord Hariric's people know the truth about the Goa'uld then they may be more receptive to the offer. And there are not many, if any, large population centres where we can both be open about being Tok'ra and be able to advertise for new volunteers to help in our battle against the Goa'uld System Lords". Per'sus finished getting the other councilors to really think about it.
That was certainly an intriguing thought and not something she had personally thought about before. It could possibly mean an end to the death of any Tok'ra simply because there was no host at the time of their previous one passing to inhabit. Her partner and host Yosuf who mostly took a back seat in their partnership voiced her agreement that this could mean an entirely new outlook for the Tok'ra. Now only if they had not lost Egeria.
It had been over two weeks now since the battle over the Rena homeworld, and Harry could not believe how slow the progress on a treaty between their two peoples has been. From what information his representative Erin, was sending him, it seems that there is a faction within the Rena senate that was totally opposed to a treaty with the Star Empire because of their soon to be former Goa'uld ties. The reason being is that they believe that this is all basically a trick of some kind to get them to lower their defences and allow him to come to conquer their world. However that would work when they basically had none to lower...
No amount of logical explanations from either his people or their own fellow senators would dissuade them, and even though they make up a small portion of their senate, maybe 15%, they could still stall the talks. At least his trip to Rena had been canceled, he really didn't need another thing to have to do, and it honestly sounded like he would have to go through ten different hoops while he was there with all the ceremonies between two heads of states.
It had also allowed him to finally hold the important speech he had been planning for nearly a year now. This would put him in a better position when negotiations took place in the future. Sure they had an agreement on some minor things in the beginning, and that was a good start, but Harry saw them as a far more useful ally and asset than simply being a minor trading partner. Having a true name for their nation, the Star Empire, made it all that much easier, and according to Erin, slavery was one of the major negatives for even the senators that favored an alliance with them.
Therefore it made perfect timing that his proclamation and emancipation speech had been given in just under a week after the battle over the Rena homeworld. Now when the Rena senators finally make their way to Argensis for their face to face meet and greet, something they all had deceided may be the better option, he can show them that slavery was no longer accepted in the Empire. He would simply be in a better position to negotiate, even if he already held the position of supreme strength.
Still even today, a few weeks later, his troops stood over the Rena homeworld as extra protection. Gelon had also dispatched additional ships to Earth as they finished their shakedown cruises. Though his troops over Rena would be coming home in phases as the Rena people eventually repair and add to their defences. The Ha'tak he gifted them also went a long way to ensuring their protection, but they had decided, which he agreed with, to take parts of it offline to study and improve their own technology with. That gift of his was what went a long way to gaining him the large support he has in the Rena senate.
However even with an example to work with, it will take them a long time to even produce something as powerful as a Ha'tak let alone improve upon that technology. The only reason that Harry had so little trouble was because he simply had access and understanding of Goa'uld technology all thanks to the now dead Pelops. Combined with his magic to augment and improve his mental capacities, allowed him to gain even further understanding in a short period of time. Therefore he was not afraid of the Rena people becoming a major threat to him and his people anytime soon, ensuring his position of supreme strength in future negotiations for some time.
All that being said, the basic treaty they had agreed to on their first day of talks, as well as with some other minor additions tacked on was signed by his representative today. Once repairs on Rena and their defences had progressed enough, a group of their senators would be travelling to Argensis to finish negotiations, and sign a far more robust treaty or agreement. However that was going to be most likely six to eight months out, and until then the bulk of the negotiations between their two people will take place on Rena with his representatives. There are even talks about opening an embassy, however for now a Scout in space was being used for that role.
As this was all going on his troops were undertaking important missions to search the wreckage of the enemy Ha'tak for computer crystals to gain the ship's navigational data. These had contained locations for the various worlds controlled by the minor Goa'uld that attacked Rena. It would not do for him to leave all those planets with all those possible people and resources just sitting there, not being utilized or sitting in his vaults waiting to be used. Therefore he planned to benefit from this endeavor in more than one way by ransacking their former planets.
Harry had adopted one of the observations rooms on his flagship Ha'tak, that was mostly stationed over Earth these days for easy access to the planet for himself and others. He had changed the observation room into a calming room where he could relax or even Merlin forbid meditate on whatever was bothering him, or just somewhere quiet to submerge himself in his magic for the calming and rejuvenating effect it had on him. He often did this while looking out into the vastness of space, something about the sure size of the universe and the expanse between planets was humbling. Even for someone with his growing ego.
At the moment he was chuckling a bit at how effective his offer to the Rena senators had been in starting to tie them into his economy and credit system. Already, even before the official signing, they had started ordering materials, such as Naquadah, Gold and other rare metals, all in exchange for those credits he had basically gifted them on day one. His mining methods were incredibly effective at gaining all those metals used in electronics that were only found in minute amounts in other metal veins. The Rena government had already spent nearly 75% of the ten million Galactic Credits he had given them, and already his representatives have been fielding questions of possible trade for additional credits from various senators.
Apparently access to all sorts of materials stored away by Q and being easily sent through the Chappa'ai via ring transporters, appealed to even some of the obstinate senators opposing closer ties. It was not even that hard for him to figure out how to allow ring transporter mater beams to be sent through the gate, even if it was only ever one way and he had to trick that targeting computer on the rings to simply send that matter stream straight at the event horizon. That being said it looked like he would have his teachers soon as the Rena were chomping at the bit to get more Credits to purchase some of the goods available from his people.
This all worked out well for him, mainly with the economic boom trade between their people will bring, but that also meant a ton more work. Thankfully he was able to offload the vast majority of it to his subordinates, and have his VIs monitor them and report back. Without his time being taken up by management duties like that, he was able to spend even more time on his side projects. There were tons of things he had been thinking about creating, or improving on, but he was only one person, and that was why his schools were so important.
Eki stood at his post at the city gate that he had been manning for a few years now. He served the great lord Babi who had recently started a great campaign to conquer some humans who failed to bow down to his Lord's might and bask in the glory of the Goa'uld.
He like many of his fellow Jaffa who were left behind to continue to guard the few places of importance here on his lord's throneworld. All of them would far rather be out there battling with their comrades earning honor and glory as they slew enemies in battle. The devotion they would have been able to show their god in battle was taken from them as they had to continue acting as guards day in and day out. It made him and his fellows hate the human slaves they needed to watch all to ensure they kept working.
If they only would do their assigned work with the correct level of devotions and without needing his Jaffa brothers to give them physical encouragement, then he could be out there battling those lowly humans who have been trying to resist the inevitable. It just didn't make sense why they would not want to join his lord and gain Babi's protections in the after life. Those thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt when he saw the most peculiar sight cresting over the hill from the direction of the Chappa'ai.
It seemed like a troop of people were coming over the hill, but that should not have been possible without one of the scouts around the Chappa'ai sounding their horns to announce invaders or something similar, as there were no scheduled arrivals today to the best of his knowledge. That worry and disquiet grew as the figures finally fully crested the hill and Eki could make out nearly a hundred black armoured warriors carrying some type of what he thought to be weapons. That was his last coherent thought before he started to scramble for cover as a literal wave of bolts came barreling towards him and his fellow Jaffa stationed at the gate.
A plasma shot took him square in the chest nearly immediately and he was blown back, with his armour having saved his life but not prevented all the damage the smaller more streamlined plasma shot had done to him. As he was starting to slowly lose consciousness from hitting his head when he fell and blood loss, he saw swarms of some new type of fighters come screaming down from the sky towards their current position. No wait, not screaming, they barely made any sound to him, how odd, was his last thought before succumbing to the darkness.
Gelon strode into the main temple of the former Goa'uld Babi's throneworld, after an admittedly short battle that had taken place, all while thinking about how stupidly easy this and the other ground battles were. His troops had stormed through the Chappa'ai after the cloaked probe sent back its telemetry. His vanguard's shots took out all of those nearby immediately as they exited the gate, hitting some of them from over 200 meters, with their sensors and the probes picking out the hiding gate scouts. It barely took ten seconds from when the probe was sent through before his troops started arriving and had secured the Chappa'ai from the three Jaffa watching the gate.
He had come out of the gate shortly after to see the few Vanguard troops having already started to secure the immediate area, and were assembling for further action. Behind him was nearly five hundred others waiting to come through the gate. A massive overkill in terms of troops needed, as the Scout cloaked in orbit sensor's had only picked up a few hundred armed Jaffa in and surrounding the small area with Babi's former residence and the town.
"Vanguard secure forward positions while the main strength continues to come through the gate." he said calmly as his armour and Armband transmitted his orders to all the right people without him needing to choose who to relay his messages to or having to yell. Just with that thought, the first of the heavier equipment came through the gate and setup a forward base with the Mobile Shield Array erecting a protective barrier while the first M.A.F.P.A what setup to screen for any enemy fighters or larger ships. Though the Scouts in orbit would deal with those if they showed up, and the few fighters that will be deployed through the gate after ground deployment.
It was kinda ironic that he would not have been granted permission to lead this attack had they not gotten orbital superiority first before with their Scouts, as he had somehow become too valuable to his lord to lose to a lucky shot by some untrained buffoon in an Alkesh trying to die for his false god. His lord's words not his. Though it irked him that he would no longer be able to always lead his Lord's forces into battle, as he had done in the past; on the other hand it was somewhat bolstering to know he was so valued.
The main reason for him wanting gain permission to lead this attack was because he had not participated recently in any major ground operations. Especially with the troop utilizing their new hardware. This gave him the perfect opportunity to get more accustomed to them so that he could more easily predict their abilities when he has to take a higher level roll and step off the battlefield to direct the action from above and/or beyond. His lord agreed with his assessment, hence his presence here.
That being said these past few battles were entirely disappointing. This was the last planet they needed to attack, and they had only lost a handful of troops with a few lucky blasts from gliders, and an Alkesh. In ALL the battles. Otherwise the amount a resistance the Jaffa of these minor Goa'uld put up against their well trained and armed troops was simply... pathetic. Disgraceful. Sure some enemy Jaffa landed shots of his troops, but more than ten in a few minutes to over power their armour's heat sinks? Not too likely.
That made him a bit embarrassed and ashamed at how great of a warrior he thought himself to be in the past, when he could barely claim to have been better than those they had just run roughshod over. It made him want to ensure he encourages all his close friends and family to take self improvement classes during their rest periods of their day.
It was kinda liberating to feel these moments, see truly how far they had come in such a short period of time. Thank Hariric, for blessing their people with his wisdom and powers. However he could have done with more of a challenge to truly get a grasp of the capabilities of his troops and what their new hardware provided. The fact that he knew that his lord would probably have even more changes or slight modifications to their armour after the reports of these battles made their was back to him, only made Gelon shake his head with a smile at the headache those changes would cause for him.
With that in mind, he ordered his troops to start the cleanup and salvage operations. Which meant that they would basically take anything that isn't secured down after they transferred the humans slaves and any Jaffa that still lived to Argensis. Anyone who died would be cremated, and the injured treated before being sent to Argensis. They had captured nearly 250,000 thousand Jaffa and humans from the twelves planets they had hit. This influx was honestly not needed, especially with the groups of people coming from the first primitive planet discovered in the Empires domain that was currently being integrated. However they would make it work, as more people will mean more to work towards ensuring the prosperity of the empire and their lord.
Gelon looked around at the typical primitive Goa'uld settlement that was starting to be dismantled as he made his way back. His lord had little interest in the planets they had just conquered, and they would be sending a specialized ship just being built to pick up the Chapa'ais and DHDs, to be stored securely at one his lord facilities. It had never occurred to Gelon before about taking a gate to effectively deny the Goa'uld the ability to recapture the planet easily. Without a gate, access to the planet would be basically impossible for most to achieve. Essentially making the planet lost to the System Lord collective.
The extra Chappa'ais will come in handy in the future, but for now the gate surely could be used on any number of planets recently discovered that were already inside the Empire's borders. There was no need to try and claim planets a fair distance from their own centre of influence, stretching their forces thin. This was something he and his lord both agreed on. Especially with his and Ishta's recent job of securing the population centres of the two discovered primate planets. With that in mind Gelon started to make his way back to the gate as his little 'vacation' from the mountains of paperwork and problems that the volume of new residents on Argensis was causing, was basically over.
Looking to his escort of Jaffa he finally broke his silence. "We go home." he informed his guard, and looked over to his second in command, Alexander and spoke again. "Ensure that all the materials are taken through the gate and do a total scan of the planet and star system, then log it in the computers for later possible use." he said to the Captain and Fleet Commander who was second in command of their strike back operations.
"It will be done General." Alexander nodded to him in confirmation as he and his guard/command party continued to the Chappa'ai. He could see their fighters continuing to pass overhead doing nothing but patrolling the air space. All along the streets were lined with people being marched orderly towards the direction of the gate with small packs carrying their personal belongings. He imaged Governor Ana was not going to be happy will the large additional number of people, and his Lord's lovers could be scary in their own right when angered. He should have one of his subordinates handle passing over the news, if she didn't already know.
Harry had been putting completing a project that had been in the back of his head ever since he had absorbed Pelops' memories. When he had first learnt about the Sarcophagus and various other technologies, an idea formed in his mind and there was this quiet voice in the back of his mind informing him that these could be perfect for ensuring his long term survival. The concept he had devised was a fairly robust form of immortality to protect him in the event that his body is destroyed and or incapacitated.
The basic premise for his idea was already present and fairly well researched in magic. However without the help of certain technologies that he now had access to, it made the idea completely unrealistic, if not impossible to pull off. His new found ability to really pull it off was all thanks to the unique teleporters he gained from the Rena people allowing him a ton of flexibility with energy to matter conversion of organic materials.
His plan started some time ago with him creating in secret a small, 150m by 150m mobile space station that was designed to be entirely cloaked and protected to the gills with shields and armour. The only offensive capabilities it would have, would be small point defence turrets for various uses. It would also automatically attempt to relocate if activity in the region it was hiding in started to increase.
The premise behind the design was for this station to never be discovered by anyone, and would be housed in the black of space between stars, hidden for all time behind various cloaking fields. It would have a small hyperspace capable shuttle, a computer core that was periodically being updated with his most recent technology, as well as his immortality chamber as he was dubbing it. The chamber was designed to house his actual body for as long as was necessary, possibly millions of years if his power calculations where not wrong. Inside the chamber was the technologies to create an exact copy of his body right down to the molecular level, just without his consciousness. A complex shell or host, and perfect for his needs.
Once the clone was finished being constructed, he was going to perform a unique form of possession that he had modified from Tom's memories. The interesting twist, was that he was going to possess a copy of his own body, leaving his real body in stasis protected in the middle of the black of space. His original body would be kept within a runic array for protection as well for additional preservation. On top of that the entire room was under a modified form of the healing rays from the Goa'uld Sarcophagus as a backup.
The possession process would be far easier than if he was going posses someone or something normally, because this copy of his body contained neither another soul or mind to protect it from and fight off the possession. There would also be no compatibility problems with the body containing his magic, therefore removing the break down effect that would normally occur via possession of a foreign body or homunculus.
If the clone he was possessing gets damaged to a point beyond any means for his magic to maintain, his soul will instantly be snapped back to his real body where it is permanently tethered too. All of his memories and powers intact. He would then simply repeat the process and leave with another cloned body, giving him a sudo form of immortality. Unfortunately this method would not work for anyone else and made his work on coping neural networks all that more important to safeguard those he was quickly coming to care deeply about and rely on.
The only downside was that when possessing a clone he would be slightly less powerful than normally, by about 25%, but that percentage should according to his predictions, reduce as his power continued to grow. The reason for this was because his magic had to maintain his real body on some level even with the help of technology he scalped from the Sarcophagus. His core would also need to maintain his possession reducing it even more. It was only a minor amount compared to how powerful he really was and in a few years he will most likely already be more powerful than he was before the reduction in power.
The upside was that he could actually perform a few more extreme augments on his cloned bodies before he possessed them. Things that he may be hesitant to perform on his real body without major testing, that he could now perform with his clones. One such augment he was utilizing this time around, was replacing his bones entirely with one of his magically forged alloys that were imbued with durability and a decent self repairing ability. He also added far more Naquadah to his blood and had his bones automatically replace it when he lost some due to bleeding. The bones also use minor enchantments, similar to blood replenishing potions, to ensure he never ran out of blood as he was replacing his actual bones in the process, which play an important factor in replacing blood in the human body.
All in all, he would be far stronger than normally even if he was slightly less powerful magically. His durability would also take a drastic increase and thankfully he would not even need to redo his rituals as they were imbued as much into his spirit/core/soul, as they were into his body. This meant that they would start to effect his clone the moment he took it over, and they would slowly start to ramp up to their full potential as they started to change the body over the first few weeks of possession. A good example of this was Voldemort's ritual enhancements he made throughout his life coming back when he regained a body.
The entirety of this would be housed in the small station that would then be hidden wherever he wanted. He was hoping that this would never be needed, but it was better to prepared for the worst than being caught with his pants down. And now he was responsible for the wellbeing of millions of people, including those that were now extremely important to him. Meaning he could not take the risk of him being removed permanently. Therefore he had put aside the bad taste in his mouth and had got around to finalizing the creation of a method of immortality.
With the past conflicts he had over this put behind him, Harry clicked the start button on the med station that overlooked the metallic skeleton on the table in the sealed enclosure in front of him. He had just finished installing and modifying the Rena teleportation technology to his requirements, and now he watched as the machine started to essentially create an exact copy of his body around the metal 'bones'. It was more than a little disturbing to watch the process, but it only took roughly an hour for it to finish. The skeleton was honestly what took the longest to create, taking him more than a week each, which meant he had created several to be stored away for possible future use.
He had decided against tweaking his biology too much besides replacing some of the functions his bones provided. This was mainly due to what effect it could possibly have on him long term or on his ability to use his magic properly. He certainly didn't need to change his endowment down below, as he was not lacking at all in that department. That being said he did actually include the Goa'uld symbiote organs as it was in his original body, as his scans and experiences showed how much of a benefit it was to him to have. Hence how his magic had incorporated it into his body for him after Pelops' consciousness was destroyed by him.
When the body was finished, it automatically transferred from the glass enclosed box to a metal pod on the side that could slide out and give access to the clone. Thankfully Harry was already read to go and simply clicked the button beside the pod, and almost morgue like, a tray with his clone on it slid out. He quickly looked it over before having the medical scanners once again scan it to ensure its viability. With a wave of his wand he cast a few diagnostic spells to also ensure it was healthy, no harm in double checking he thought.
With that finished there was no time like now, so he pointed the death stick at the forehead of the clone and cast the spell he personally created for this purpose.
"EPOXIMPERA ANIMA CORPORI!". He yelled out, as he concentrated his will and magic on the effect he wanted as the spell left his wand heading straight for the clone on the medical table. Once he finished casting everything went dark for a moment before he heard something hitting the floor beside him. Realizing his eyes were closed he opened them and found himself lying on the medical bed. Sending his magic internally to check to see if everything was alright, he found nothing out of the ordinary except for the fact that his magic seemed to flow around his body without restraint.
That must have been the result of all the additional Naquadah in his blood, and the fact that his bones themselves now conducted magic like no tomorrow. Looking to his side he saw his original body slumped down on the ground unconscious. He looked down on it for a few dozen seconds before he snapped out of the odd visage.
It was honestly kinda disconcerning looking at yourself almost as if your dead and a ghost. Quickly swinging his legs to the side of the bed he noticed that his body was not reacting quite as fluidly as it did before, but quickly realized that was because the rituals had not taken full effect yet.
Waving his hand he quickly cast a silent a levitation spell on his body proving that his magic still worked all the while moving his body to the runic preservation array. Stripping his body of a few of his personal effects, mostly things that could easily be replaced or were not at risk of being destroyed with his own body. With the incredible protections on things like his manor trunk or LIS, they had the ability for it to return to his side if taken to far, ie his clone body being destroyed, and they were not at risk of being lost or destroyed with his clone body.
However there were a few things he would need to keep copies on hand here, such as his Armband, or some of his more basic enchanted items, such as his weapons if they didn't have any return enchantments binding them to his magic. As well as a few sets of armour he has been working on perfecting to replace his standard basilisk suit he wears constantly. He needed those because as amazing as his suit is, it would not return to him when his clone is destroyed. Most likely because it it self would be destroyed first and secondly because it did not contain nearly enough magic or the right bindings. Maybe he could look into soul bound armour in the future.
After his new body was quickly decked out in his usual gear, he boarded his the shuttle he had used to get to the station, and moved to the cockpit area. Sitting down he powered up the small shuttle and prepared it for launch. Activating its cloak before he left the cloaked station, he left the small hanger bay, and took off into hyperspace towards Argensis. It only took him a few hours to return back to Argensis were he slipped into the main temple and took a seat at his desk, all without anyone even realizing he had left the planet that night in the first place.
It was kinda shocking that something so monumental for himself had taken place and no one knew about it; frankly that work just fine for him. However he did have a smile on his face for the rest of the evening, and was a bit more chipper throughout the next day. All because even if everything went wrong he would mostly likely still have some chance to fix things or start over new somewhere else. With that last thought he got back to work and slowly got accustomed to his new body.
Harry was having a nice day until automated alert he had setup for his flagship sensors notified him of a Sarcophagus being moved to the facility that the Chappa'ai was being held in under Cheyenne Mountain. The complex was supposed to be just an operation for NORAD, but clearly that was just a cover. It was only hours later when checking the sensor logs for around the mountain trying to figure out what had happened, did he discover a Goa'uld entering the base from the surface. The computers told him that the sector where Sarcophagus was discovered was going to have an in depth scan in the coming weeks, meaning he had almost avoided this entire issue had those people who dug out the sarcophagus had waited another month.
Looking for Naquadah that was buried under about 2ms of anything actually was quite difficult for his ships sensors, unless it was serious enough quantities. That meant that it was a slow process to try and find technology created with the metal. This all assumed that there was no passive or active methods being utilized to fool his sensors either. That basically meant that even with the slow methodical sensor sweep they were doing, they were bound to miss a few deeply buried treasures or secrets. It didn't help that they had limited ships to do so and all had to remain cloaked while doing so. Nor that most of the ships that had been here had to leave to Rena few months back.
That all being said, he kicked himself for not setting up an automated alert on any new Goa'uld signatures being located on Earth, but he just figured as long as he was tracking what was coming through the gate he would be ok. He had made the assumption that he was still safe from them infiltrating the planet for the time being and it had come to bite him in the ass. Though in his defence he still did not have full sensor coverage of the planet yet, as he did not have enough cloaked satellites or ships in orbit yet. Something he was definitely going to rectify soon, but honestly his own planets took priority, and they had already lent a few to the Rena people temporarily while they replaced and repaired defences.
He had almost fallen into that same sense of superiority that seemed to effect all of the Goa'uld, and almost let it cloud his judgement, by making stupid assumptions. 'An ass out of you and me', was such an apt sentiment. Even though he was almost certain that the Goa'uld his sensors had detected had most likely been in stasis, and therefore there had been no new infiltrations, it would still require immediate investigation. It also gave him another reason to infiltrate the Military program they have been running out of the Mountain and see what exactly they are up too. The lack of networking to the base's secure computers really stymied his remote attempts to access most of their data.
Using his Rings to transport to his office in his home, he quickly cloaked himself in a variety of charms to silence himself, remove his sent, and make himself invisible, before he apparated silently to just outside the gates of Cheyenne Mountain. It was honestly a fairly impressive and intimidating entrance way, if you did not have thousands of years of opulence of the Goa'uld kicking around in your head. Looking further into the tunnel entrance complex he used his perfected silent ability apparate, and teleported to just outside the doors leading into the inner complex.
It took him nearly fifteen minutes of waiting for someone to come along to activate the elevator that he needed to use to enter the underground base, but wait he did. He had decided that this was the best course of action, instead of forcing things with his magic or tech. He did not actually want anyone to realize they had been infiltrated. Eventually the young gentlemen he was sharing the elevator with got off on the bottom floor. From what he was able to glean from the man's mind with a quick look, was that the lower floors of the complex where only reachable by a second elevator on sublevel 11 for security reasons.
Once outside the first set of elevators he found himself in a fairly stereotypical military base with concrete, exposed piping, and various signage on the walls and floors. He could even make out a few blast doors that could probably be lowered simply at the press of a button. There did seem to be an excessive set of backups and redundancies that he could make out with a quick glance and this was just the joint elevator reception area.
He ended up not having to wait as long as last time, as he was able to get a ride down in the second elevator a few minutes after arrived on sublevel 11. With only a minor hiccup of someone almost having walked into him in the reception area, he had made it to the most secure level of the base without much to note. You had to love magic sometimes, and if someone didn't have a defense against it, it made things beautifully simple. That being said he had a job to do here, and it wasn't wondering what was out of place as something was not quite right here on this base since he had arrived.
As he made his way up the metal stairs to the control room he found a most peculiar site. There were eight woman gearing up for what appeared to be a mission of some kind. Listening in he heard them discussing Hathor, which immediately piqued his interest as he moved into the room. There discussion quickly gave him an identity to go with the Goa'uld signature he had detected on his scanners and with his magical senses since he and arrived on the lower levels. Just as he entered the room, so to did of all things, a Jaffa who walked down a set of stairs that led to some type of room above, most likely the observation or briefing room.
"Captain Carter." the Jaffa addressed the blond Captain. "We must speak of Hathor."
"Keep your hands where I can see them Teal'c!" Carter commanded calmly to the Jaffa. Clearly not afraid of him in the general sense, as he would expect of those from Earth towards a Jaffa. Things here were just getting more and more interesting. He would definitely have to stay around to see how things go down and to learn a bit more about the operations going on here. Even if he was going to have to do that anyway with the Goa'uld kicking around, but it also seemed to him that those here may be working towards that direction as well.
"Do you not trust me Captain Carter?" the Jaffa who was named Teal'c asked. For some reason that name rang a bell for Harry but he could not quite place it.
"All the men on this base are under Hathor's control from what I can tell." Carter said to the Jaffa. Now that was an interesting piece of information, and definitely upgraded the threat level Hathor posed, but what baffled him was that Pelops had never heard of this ability before. It was possibly something to look into. "And I hate to break it to you Teal'c, but you are male."
"I am a Jaffa, the Goa'uld I carry within me protects me from Hathor's powers. It is only together that we may stop her." Teal'c stated calmly while holding his hands to the side.
"From doing what exactly?" asked the Captain intrigued and a bit worried.
"It is a legend among the Jaffa. That the original Goa'uld larvae come from the Queen Goa'ulds." said Teal'c as the group continued to discuss the threat that a queen Goa'uld would pose to the base and planet.
"And you think Hathor is one of them?" Carter asked for confirmation.
"Yes." Teal'c answered her stoically. "If I am correct this base will become her nest. From here she will populate your world with new Goa'uld. I cannot permit this to happen. Captain Carter, we cannot permit this to happen." finished the large man towards his ally as she handed him a weapon.
They were correct in fearing what an outbreak caused by the Goa'uld spawned from Hathor using the base as a breeding ground could do to the planet. However while they were making their plans to retake back the base Harry quietly made his way to one of the servers and manually plugged in his Armband. While there were some wireless access points, the current technology of Earth prohibited any meaningful data transfers over that medium currently. Therefore he had to resort to plugging in and downloading their database the old fashioned way.
It only took moments for Jarvis to have wormed his way into their system, moving through their safeguards and firewalls almost as if they did not exist. This was due to a few reasons, the advanced programming and computational power of Jarvis, and the limitations of Earth's systems. Harry had learnt a ton about programming and safeguards when studying both the Chappa'ai, and designing and implementing his Armband control system for all his tech. Those skills he had passed onto his VI who had done trillions of simulations and permutations to perfect them and their use.
What this meant was that he was already unplugging a fully downloaded base database when Captain Carter's group had moved out and split up going after each of their objectives. Harry decided to take the time to take out his Intelligence Probe from his expanded pouch, and put it upstairs in the currently empty briefing room. From what he had gleaned from his elevator buddy, most important things were discussed here in this room, and would make an ideal location to keep a close watch on their operations. It didn't hurt that the general's office was the room next to it either.
Anyways it was not like his probe needed to be in the control room to use the weak wireless to keep up to date on all the mission reports that were issued. Those would help Harry keep an eye on anything going on in the facility going forward, as trying to break in and to download a ton of files was not something that he looked forward to doing often. Not that the site that greeted him in the control room was terrible, as the Captain had actually been quite cute, and definitely sexy in the military uniform. Even if it was armour and she had her hair cut really short.
Once the cloaked Intelligence Drone was planted and he made sure it was connected to his network and the base computers, all just in case, as this was the first time he had used them for long term surveillance, he moved out. Unfortunately by the time he caught up with the group, they had just finished failing to take on Hathor in some bathroom of some kind, of a large locker room. She was in a tub with a ton of Primtas squealing annoyingly, surrounded by the male members of the base.
He watched as the only members of the base with their full faculties were taken into custody. Merlin he just knew that this base and its various members were going to be an ongoing headache for him in his mission to not get the Earth destroyed. No one wanted to imagine the sure horror that would be a Dobby who had found out there would be no more movies, and that none of his favorite franchises will get continuations. Jeez that Elf had become such a nerd to so many ways, it was a little endearing.
Deciding to hang around while under a notice-me-not, he followed the female group to the room where they were going to be held, and decided that he was going to let events play themselves out and only step in if he really felt it was absolutely necessary. He also had his ship sensors set to alert him if any Goa'uld left the base and to track their progress.
What his fairly brief observations culminated in, was his following the group of resourceful woman as they broke out and took on Hathor once again, which had him super thankful for the silencing charm that he had used before entering the facility, as he broke out in laughter at their successful attempts at seduction. Finally the group of woman got to the point were they confronted Hathor in the bathroom again and set her on fire with some bullets in a bathtub?
Though he was able to easily see Hathor as she used some form of primitive cloaking device, and made her escape, which he followed. He was in a bit of a pickle on deciding if he should interfere or not, but to do so would most likely inform them of his presence, which he absolutely did not want to occur. It may compromise his intelligence probe in some way or lead to other issue he was not even considering at the moment.
Hathor dialed the Chappa'ai and made her way out to the gate room were the remains of sarcophagus was. He was about to stun her with a spell, as she was walking up the ramp to the gate but as he was the blast doors over the observation window opened to show members of the SGC standing there helpless as they watched Hathor make her escape, ruining his chance.
Deciding not to follow Hathor, instead he pulled out a small device from his bottomless pouch, and used his magic to stick a tiny transmitter to her neck under a notice-me-not. This would allow for him to pick her up if she ever entered anywhere in range of his communication network or one of his ships. While it was not a perfect solution it could help in the future with dealing with Hathor.
As the SGC members entered the gateroom, they started to survey the damage and start some clean up. Harry feeling that the situation was finally under control, took a step and while mid step, apparated back to his house. According to Jarvis he had a ton of backlog mission reports to read through to get a handle on what was going on in that mad house called Stargate Command. He honestly was not too worried about Hathor being out in the greator galaxy, she was just another Goa'uld, and one that was out of date to boot. On top of that even from Pelops' memories and her own reputation, Hathor was in comparison to other Goa'uld, a benevolent ruler to her subjects.
She also had the position of being one of the few Goa'uld who were not complete assholes. Though that was not saying much as she was still a disgusting person, but at least she was not cruel just to be cruel. There was only one Goa'uld that did not claim to be a god, and that was the one Goa'uld Harry and Pelops both held a bit of respect for, and that is Yu. That being said there had been a few rumours making the circuits that Yu was making some unhinged decisions lately and that his age was finally catching up with him. It wasn't surprising as he was the oldest remaining System Lord, and Harry knew they all used their sarcophaguses still.
Walking into his library Harry had in his house, he sat down on one of the nice leather chairs and got comfortable before he started to delve into the various reports from the SGC. He was also interested to see what they reported about this latest incident, as it could possibly give him some insight into what they did and didn't included in their reports. With that in mind he got to reading said mostly dry reports.
It was a few days after since his infiltration of Cheyenne Mountain, and he had just finished going over all the reports the SGC had accumulated since they had started up operations just over a year and a half ago. They had gotten into so much trouble it was astounding that they had not blown themselves up yet. It also shocked him in that they had already made contact with so many different people out there. The most interesting of the bunch definitely had to be the Nox and even direct mentions of the Asgard. Though they didn't actually get in contact with the Asgard as they had done with the Nox, but that is most likely to change if they keep up this rate of good/bad luck.
However it seemed that the gate on the Nox planet had since been buried, it would still be worthwhile for him to pay them a visit. They were most certainly magical in some way, and extreme pacifists, so any danger would be minimal. He may even be able to learn something from them as he was always looking to expand his knowledge base, especially that of magic. If the reports were to be believed, then on top of using magic they also seemed to be fairly technologically advanced, which could mean that they could help him with his integration of magic and technology. They would have to wait though as he only had fifteen Scouts currently built and operational, and they were all being utilized.
In all honesty getting into contact with the Asgard would most likely be the more dangerous endeavor he has taken yet, but also the most fruitful if he could come to some form of a trade. That being the case, meant he had to have something to offer them in the first place and from some of the notes made by Captain Carter he had a few hints and ideas, but nothing concrete yet except for some of the Ancient tech he had accumulated so far. Though at least he now had a possible way to contact them if he simply traveled to the planet Chimera and searched for a way to get their attention.
There were interesting times ahead for sure, as changes were happening all over the galaxy, and this much excitement had not been seen in the Galaxy since the founding of the System Lords. Goa'uld fighting over Ra's former domain, Goa'uld who were thought to be dead, like Hathor, popping back up in the greater galaxy, and new and old enemies joining the fray like the Tau'ri and Asgard. It was certainly not going to be boring for the next few decades. It also seemed the Jaffa were finally getting tired of their illustrious gods, and were chafing under the rule of the Goa'uld.
Thankfully production of ships and other defences were all on schedule or even ahead of initial projections. This meant that even though they did not have quite enough Scouts, to act in their designed role, ie Scouting, it did mean they could keep three on their 'border' with Cronus, two patrolling space to the Galactic North towards the edge of the Galaxy and finally two to patrol between his space and former Ra territory. All this while ensuring their were at least one around all his populated planets, and a few at both Earth and Rena.
Gelon was doing a good job dispatching crews after they finished their shakedown flights. Often that meant simply take over the role of patrol ships for a week before being sent somewhere else more important. However he really needed to work on, and finalize some of his designs for larger ships, but that will come most likely at the end of the year, or the start of the next.
A few new factory eggs were being built right now, and the start on the FORGE system was already underway, all in secret of course. With Mira, the FORGE System VI, taking control of a Scout that had just came off the factory line, which then promptly had its records deleted. With this scout Mira had been able to easily drag the FORGE system beginning factory egg to its destination. The construction egg would start the entire process of getting that system up and running in a few years times hopefully without anyone knowing.
This meant that when he finally started to confront the Goa'uld on a more open basis, he won't have to sacrifice protection in one area to assemble a large enough fleet to oppose some action a System Lord is taking somewhere else. Hopefully he would get to this stage first before open conflict breaks out between him and a major System lord, and that may mean getting into contact with a few of the more advanced races.
On the topic of VIs, Harry was been toying with the idea of slowly upgrading them into full AIs as he was almost certain that he had put enough safeguards in place to ensure they could not go rampant. On top of that they would have to need a reason too anyways, and with more than one to watch each other, and the chances of the AI going rampant being so low, far lower than a human going crazy, made a fairly compelling argument. It was something he may want to bring up with some others in the field, either in his budding universities, or even possibly on Earth.
Just then he got notified of a new report from SG1 about the incident that he witnessed during his infiltration of the base. It seemed that his cloaked infiltration drone was already working wonders. Hilariously the report was written in such a way that it took a clinical approach to describing some of the funny events, such as the seduction of the guards by the woman when they were locked up. However it did note the commendations the woman got which said quite a bit about the leadership on the base, that they would go so far in a situation that made them admittedly look bad, all to ensure those who deserved recognition got it.
He was going to have to keep a close watch on these people, as it seemed that they were loadstones for everything that went wrong in the galaxy. The fact that they were responsible for the death of Ra still made him chuckle, and almost downright breakout laughing at the thought of the look that would have been on that snakes face as the bomb he enriched himself went up in his face. Boom. Well that little diversion finally over, Harry had to get back to the gazillion projects he had been working on lately. Honestly he should take some breaks and possibly just spend a month or so playing around with magic, ah he could dream.
Commander Felix was standing guard at the Chappa'ai, as he did almost everyday since he got this posting nearly a year ago. He was assigned to one of the former mining worlds, now designated as N-2, that was not actually currently being used for mining, or anything really. It was his job to ensure that it was secured and defended against others attempting to take it from the Empire and his lord. While the guard duty was not the most glamorous position, it did come with some additional perks, which included one of his Lord's Elf servants that made them their meals each day. Honestly he would take the duty just to have that privilege, their food was nearly to die for.
There was also the fact that there were few places to spend their credits they were now earning, meaning that when they returned to Argensis he would usually have ample funds to do whatever he wished during his time off. That being said he loved what he was doing now far more than the times he was sent to intimidate and punish slaves for his former false god. Now such actions would get anyone here into deep trouble, and a failure on his own part to not report such an instance would get him into even more trouble himself, let alone having live with the fact that he failed in his duty to his god. A true god that looked out for the well-being and happiness of his people.
In the time that he had been here it was rare for non-scheduled gate activity, so much so that there had only been two instances of unscheduled gate activate since the facility had been built. That was why when the gate activated he quickly ordered his fellow Jaffa that were under his command to their ready positions. It was then somewhat surprising when about a dozen Jaffa in typical armour sporting the symbols of Nirti came quickly through the gate with their weapons raised.
As soon as they came through though, the security of the facility activated, just waiting for them to make any aggressive moves. Which came quickly as the leader attempted to opened fire on
Felix and his men. It was honestly a bit funny to watch as bright white bolts of energy fired down in the hundreds a second knocking out any and all the Jaffa that kept coming through the gate. Clearly they were being attacked, but his Lord's defences were holding well. Though that didn't mean he could relax.
Sending a message to the commander of the Airbase that was hidden in an offsite location on the planet, about the attack and to go yellow alert. Another message was sent off simultaneously to Argensis as he and his men prepared to repel invaders. Not that it was really needed as none of them were even conscious a second after exiting the gate. Thankfully it was only non-lethal energy weapons being used at the moment otherwise the stink would be terrible with all the plasma burns inside a building. Though he was almost certain his lord had thought of a solution to that problem as well.
The gate shut down after about fifty Jaffa had come through and were now piled up in front. Some most likely had already fallen back through the open wormhole, disappearing forever. He was just about to order his men to start transporting the enemy Jaffa to holding cells when additional containment shields activated and a bright flash occurred, followed by an explosion that rocked the base slightly. Thankfully his helmet had automatically dimmed, as even with the fast action dimming, he still had a few minor sun spots in his eyes.
It took him only a few moments of deliberation to realize what had occurred. Obviously these Jaffa had been sent with some explosive device to wipe out the facility if they failed in their attack to take it over. Thankfully there were differences both outside and inside the facility. It would have been silly, had a simple bomb through the gate be able to disable the whole facility. Just as that thought passed through his mind alerts all over the base started to go off, as well as him being fed information from the facilities computers to his Armband. It seemed the ground attack was only stage one as two vessels, a Ha'tak and an Alkesh had dropped out of hyperspace and were quickly vectoring for attack.
It didn't take long for plasma blasts to rein down of the facilities shields, and he walked into the command center when the facilities upgraded plasma defense turrets started to return fire on the Ha'tak. Looking over the holotable showing him the entire battle situation he could already see fighters being airborne from the offsite airfield. The intensity of enemy plasma fire increased as they closed the distance in orbit to the facility.
Looking around he was pleased to see all of those in the CC were doing their jobs without panicking, and needed no instruction from him. It seemed those courses they were all made to undergo to ready them for events like this definitely seemed to be paying off. Looking around he confirmed that the defensive satellite in orbit was still cloaked, as it was their trump card in case something drastic went wrong, and he had orders that unless the base was at risk of being destroyed not to utilize it yet.
"Sir Enemy vessel is already starting to take heavy damage from the facilities plasma turrets, and our fighters are now engaging their Alkesh and small number of gliders. Scratch that sir confirmed kill on the Alkesh." Said his most senior tactical officer, Rika, relaying a bit more detailed information that what the holo display was showing him. "Enemy Ha'tak shields are failing quickly and base shields are holding with minimal strain." she finished clearly excited by the tone of her voice.
This attack really showcased for Felix, how truly far Nirti has fallen if this is all she could get together for an attack on the Empire. It was honestly a bit pathetic, and not nearly enough to actually succeed in attacking this or any of the Empire held planets. Even if the sensors did say that the vessels they were fighting were slightly upgraded from the Ra era standard, they we need at least three times their number to threaten this facility.
"Sir enemy Ha'tak is reversing course and appears to being retreating!" another officer exclaimed, as the holo display reflected the reported retreating vessel leaving orbit. "Fighter missile are away!" Small fast moving yellow dots could be seen leaving small green indicators for their fighters.
They all watched the fast moving dots traveled from the fighters in pursuit of the Ha'tak, quickly closing the distance between the two targets. When they finally reached it only took the few to make contact before the small part of the display flashed with a big expansion of light before returning to nothing, showing how quite effective those Naquadah missiles were against weakened shields. It did not seem there would be any survivors in that debris field, however it was still standard operating procedure to do a thorough check and salvage all enemy assets, especially those from space.
With that in mind he reduce the threat level to yellow, and started to open communications with Argensis. When he did so he was surprised to see his Lord on the other end waiting for his report. "Commander I am looking over sensors feeds of the battle, but I would still like your report." Lord Hariric asked calmly, far more calmly than anyone else present at the time.
"My Lord, its an Honor." he exclaimed quickly, before getting his bearings, which got him a small smile and nod in return. "The attack was unprovoked, with their initial attempt at attacking the facility through the Chappa'ai, before their ships dropped out of Hyperspace and initiated their attack from orbit. The facility held quite well only losing 9% shield strength before we were able to respond in kind." Felix said far more calmly then he felt, as his lord nodded his head along, clearly following the report.
"After fighters were in the air, and the attack was returned to the Ha'tak, we started removing their assets one at a time in quick succession." he continued his report, losing quite a bit of his nervousness about talking directly to his god. "Their gliders were no match for our fighters, and the Alkesh was removed with a single missile. After the Alkesh was destroyed the enemy Ha'tak attempted to retreat, but not before it was engaged and destroyed by a couple of missiles from your fighters my lord." He said finishing the central part of the report he will submit later, and bowing his head.
"Where they any cloaked vessels observing the battle in the system?" Lord Hariric asked. Which had him looking to his tactical officer for confirmation, which got a head shake in the negative.
"None that were picked up by any of the sensors, my Lord." his answer brought a smile to his lords face.
"It seems that Nirti has made more than one mistake today, and the main one is how much she seemed to underestimate our defences and all of your resolves." Lord Hariric said happily with a smile on his face. "Make sure you do a detailed report and submit it once you have finished handling this emergency. Well done commander Felix, and I hope to see more successes from you in the future." His lord said before signing off, which left him feeling ecstatic about getting personal praise from his god.
To think that something so easy to perform as his duty, and doing it well could see him receiving something like that. It really set a precedent for all those observing and those serving with him, that their efforts were appreciated and recognized. It made it far easier to encourage those looking for a long life in the service of Lord Hariric's armed forces. There were a ton more Jaffa who were deciding to not go into the armed forces as they had always done so in the past. There was simply so many more opportunities than being a warrior who fought for their god now that things had started to really take off on Argensis.
"Commander Casualty reports." One of his CC officers said handing him a Pad. Looking it over he saw that they had lost a single fighter to an errant plasma blast from the enemy Ha'tak, however the pilots both survived the blast with only minimal injuries. This was mainly due to the amazing automated emergency escape features built into each craft allowing each pilot to land safely on the planet before their escape modules in their seat failed. It did not hurt that unlike the gliders their fights had minor shields, enough most of the time to absorb a simple Ha'tak staff blast, and still allow them to escape before their craft finally blew up.
This just brought a smile to his face as he thought of all the ways his God has changed their lives in the short few years he evolved into true godhood. Almost all the changes were in his opinion for the better, and if he couldn't see it now it would most likely become apparent later on why those changes were needed. With those thoughts finished, he started issuing additional orders to those around him to start getting this mess cleaned up. He went about his job with a vengeance, and weirdly enough a big smile, something not often found on a commander's face after just getting attacked out of the blue.
Ana was currently in a meeting with the small number of construction managers who are heading the projects for the various new districts being built onto the capital city. She, like her lover, often needed to delegate much of the tasks set before her, as she simply was not educated enough in those fields to handle some of the topics, but mostly because she simply did not have enough time.
Though at that moment she smiled as she saw a cup of tea appear just by her hand, courtesy of one of the wonderful servants Hari had created. They tried their best to make sure she was always taken care of, and wasted no time on small things they could handle, or at least that was how Winky explained it to her. Taking a sip, she turned her attention back to those in front of her.
"We will need to get additional energy conduits produced soon to provide for this recent expansion." Caleb, one of her more senior infrastructure cabinet members, all who were appointed by either herself or Hari. "Current supply is not going to meet the future demand we and some of the military are creating. Additional factories will have to be made to produce these and other things we are starting to run short on." Caleb finished his report from his padd without condemnation, and was just simply stating a fact.
The amount of people coming to Argensis was ballooning with the influx of people from new planets discovered in the Empire domain, and the additional people being brought in from the recently sacked minor Goa'uld worlds that played a part in the attack on Rena. That meant that the conversion and acclimation centers needed to be expanded, and additional districts added to this and other cities being built on Argensis.
On top of that, she also had to setup residences for the coming teachers that would arrive soon from Rena, and for the new classrooms they would be teaching in. Though a ton of it would happen through virtual environments, classes still needed to be held at some point. Even she was taking courses, and was learning more about administrating a government, not that Hari helped that much in that regard. He often knew what he wanted, ie the results and the general path, but he didn't always think through the mountain of paperwork to get there.
Not that she could really fault him, because his dreams were simply so large that some of the minor minor details get lost along the way. Thank Hari, for the Elves though, as they kept her straight and provided a ton of support. They were surprisingly capable if taught what they should do, and could handle a lot of the duties a normal secretary would handle for her.
"We will need to start construction on the next factory sector before we start the others expansions, as we will need the extra manufacturing capabilities." she said in response to Caleb. "Unfortunately word from our Lord's First Prime is that the demand for factories from the military will also be increasing in the near future. That being the case means that they cannot divert any additional manufacturing capabilities to help create these new factories." she said explaining to her colleagues and getting their nods of understanding.
"One final note before we break up, remember to spread to your divisions that they can ask the Elves for help if they need it, as our Lord has reminded me that they wish to help more around the city, as they are feeling under utilized." Ana said finishing up the meeting. The entire meeting was more of a routine matter to ensure they were all on the same page, and no one was behind or uninformed about the general state of things, or possible future constraints and delays.
Ana left the conference centre, and made her way to her family's personal rooms were she knew she would find Hari. They have plans to have their meal together here at the temple tonight. However she was more looking forward to what would follow afterwards, just a bit more than the meal. Her Hari was so much more attentive to her needs than Pelops had ever been, even if she could still see a bit of Pelops in Hari in the way he got carried away with his projects and experiments. They were just so different that it was easy to forget one came from the other.
Walking down the beautiful halls, her thoughts really cemented how things had changed here at the temple and in her life. The only major worry she currently had, was that no matter how often she and Ishta laid with their lover neither seemed to ever be blessed with a child, and it worried her that Hari may discard her or them if the problem persists. Even though she knew that those worries were mostly unfounded, it still bothered her, and was something she should probably bring up with Hari sometime.
She was still thinking about it when she walked into their private apartments in the main temple, and saw her Hari finishing up cooking and setting the last few dishes onto their table waiting for her to return. It still shocked, even scandalized her a bit, that her Lord, Lover, and God, would sometimes cook food for herself and others. Though he quickly looked up and saw right through the brave front she had put on just before entering the room.
"What's wrong Ana?" Hari asked in a tone that carried his worry and love to her, which stupidly made her burst into tears before closing the distance between then and ran into his arms, giving him a backbreaking hug. She buried her face into his chest, and started blabbing about how she was a failure and wouldn't be able to give him the children and heirs he deserved. All this through her tears as she tried to explain how she was failing him.
"Ana look at me." Hari said holding her at arms length by her shoulders. After a few moments Ana looked up into his face and saw the love she always saw in his eyes shining through at her, removing all her remaining worries about losing his love over her inability to have children. "You are not a failure in any way, and I am so glad that this is the thing that had been worrying you, I thought it was something far more serious, but also I must apologize to you and Ishta, as this is all my fault." Hari said while pulling her to sit down on his lap as he took a seat in one of the chairs at the table.
"I never told you or Ishta this, and I really did not even realize it would be a problem, but I use my magic to ensure that no children are born as a result of our dalliances in the bedroom... and other rooms." he said to her shock, then growing worry that she wasn't good enough for him to give her a child, which from his changing look on his face, he could easily tell the direction her thoughts were taking. "I just do not feel I am ready to be a father, but when the time comes I will discuss it with both you and Ishta and we can decide if you or she also want to have children then too, we can do so." He said trying to comfort her, and if she was honest with herself it was working wonders.
It was relieving to know something wasn't wrong with her, and that Hari simply did not seem ready to have children, and that was something she could respect at least, if not agree with. Suddenly another thought came to her mind which she volatilized immediately. "But what if I grow too old to carry a child by the time you decide to have one, I do not have the long child bearing years that Ishta will have." she exclaimed a bit mad at him for making her wait, which only brought a chuckle out of her lover, which only made her more angry.
"My love, I guess I never really explain this, but between my magic and the nanites in your body old age won't be taking you from me without that being our choice." Hari said with a loving smile on his face that admittedly cooled her anger like nothing else could. "If you have not noticed, and I guess it's only been a year or so, so it might be too hard to notice yet, but your aging had already slowed dramatically. And in the future I have something magical that can stop it entirely if we choose to go that route." he said reassuring her and expelling most of her worries she was not really acknowledging. It almost felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
"Well if what you say is true then I shall wait, but don't you take too long making that decision. Now what did you make us for dinner, it smells wonderful." she said honestly and to try and change the subject, which Hari clearly caught onto as a large grin spread across his face. Her lord was so unique, powerful, and outofthisworld, that if bafled her at how human he could be at the same time. It was just something she loved about him, a love far beyond anything she had ever felt for Pelops or anyone else.
With that in mind she took her seat at the table as Harry came back with the last dish and took his seat just beside her at the size-adjusting magical table. They began their meal in comfortable silence as she pondered the idea about how she could possibly see if repetition could get around Hari's magic preventing her from getting with child. Something she could see about even possibly tonight, maybe she should invite Ishta to help as well.
Harry was going over the reports that Ana had sent him after their extended evening together. They were about some of the problems they were facing on the civilian side of things across the Empire. He sat at his desk while pondered his latest problem. It was weird that he was even having to address this issue, and that fact that it was mostly a problem of his own making did not escape him; and that was the fact that with his less than subtle encouragement from him and his government, and with the new nanites, certain couples had decided to start having a baby almost every month resulting in almost 10 babies in a year. While many of the issues that normally would have cropped up due to having so many kids a once was mitigated by their rapid aging upto 12 over the next two years, it still meant that there was a bit of an issue. Specifically with the lack of proper bonding time.
While he was all for having his population boom like this, he would prefer if every child had a great home and loving parents that had the time to devote to each kid. The economic issues that one would be faced with a similar situation on Earth, are avoided here as each kid gave their parents a small tax break to give additional spending money for said child.
Combined with free education, and most basic goods, having multiple children was more a logistical issue than anything else. Therefore he has had to put a limit on how many kids each couple could have, and that was going to be set at five per decade. They could have a maximum of two children a year, and once their 'quota' was used up they were no longer permitted to have any more children that decade. In the empire having children was a privilege, not a right. Though admittedly it was a privilege afforded to almost everyone.
This did mean that his city was once again growing quickly and it was becoming more and more apparent that if this trend continues at a similar rate than the current educational institutions may end up being lacking. Thankfully most education could be provided with courses offered via the Armband or virtual interaction, however there were still many higher educational requirements that could not be done just through the Armband. Thankfully most of that planning could be left in the hands of Ana and her subordinates, with him getting frequent reports which he can then go over for viability of their plans. Though there were some things he still worked on mainly himself, as it was sometimes harder to simply describe his needs than give them a blueprint of what he wanted.
That meant that he was planning to have an absolutely massive university built were all students from around the Empire could go to if they wanted, and met the requirements. It was honestly quite nice to be facing an issue like this, as it was a problem he was faced due to the prosperity of his people and not a critical threat due from outside factors.
As a result his city needed to have even more additional plans done for accelerated expansion. Looking them over he decided that between each additional layer added to the city would be a ring of parks that would surround the city. A side benefit of this is that it would allow for a bit of buffer between major sections of the city during construction. It would be interesting to see down the line how absolutely massive said parks would get after a few expansions. He mainly create these because even though many people on Earth would feel that there was enough nature parks and greenspaces already in his cities here on Argenesis, he personally felt that that was not the case.
The lack of space in many modern cities on Earth had a lot to do with decisions made early on in their development that had consequences far reaching, even to today. With his cities he wanted to ensure that where people were living the population density would be high; but one should be able to walk from their home a few blocks, to be able to get almost all their needs or wants; let alone what they gained access through via the ring transporters. This meant the need for major roads was drastically reduced, and allowed for large open spaces for parks, plazas, and recreation zones.
It created a zone high density commercial, residential, and light industry that was surrounded by and combined with large parks, public spaces, and recreation buildings. This ensured that there was countless areas for open air and enclosed communal areas, such as amusement parks, circuses, which Jaffa seemed to greatly enjoy, concert halls, community centres, and one area even housed a huge complex dedicated to the Olympics he had introduced that was growing in popularity.
He had been fairly successful in channeling some of the additional aggression that many of his Jaffa still had into sport and competition. There was even a Chess league that had been formed when he introduced the game, as the Jaffa saw it as an analogue to war games. They ate it up, and it was hilarious seeing massive Jaffa warriors crouching over a little game board with deadly serious expressions on their faces.
There were dozens more small issues, but all in all the city and industry here on Argensis was growing faster and faster. As more heavy industry was moved into space, and factories on the planet were starting to be 'retooled' to producing more commercials and construction goods, such as everyday essentials, the original view of a motherships being built on the plains was now nowhere to be found. The new city felt and looked far more impressive, with the view from the central temple beating most, with it being surrounded by the old historical city, then the bustling metropolis.
In practice it was easier to build most things in space with his current technology, even if most of those issues were mitigated by anti-grav utilized by factories on the planet. That did not mean there was not anything easier to produce or that there was no advantage to factories planetside. However there was limited space, and even building them a distance away from the city and using Rings, still meant that space on the planet was being taken up by something that was mostly automated anyways at this point.
That being said he did have Q build a second large-scale underground facility, this time instead of just material storage, it was going to be layers of small scale factories. This was for a few reasons, one it allowed for mass production of many different goods by the government almost on demand. Secondly by moving much of the industrial infrastructure into space, if that was somehow cut off it could spell disaster for the city without such a facility. That did mean though that it would be mostly underutilized as it was more a backup rather than for typical industry load.
Hence it being a secret underground facility that could be ramped up in utilization in times of need, and could take any possible over demand that may result from increased population spikes. Constant Vigilance as the imposter Moody kept saying, and for him that meant redundancies and back up plans for the backups.
One thing that he had been first against, but talked into by Ana and Gelon, was about allowing the construction of monuments besides that of his black obelisks to commiserate and celebrate key moments, figures, or ideals in the Empire's history. He was against it at first, as he knew that he would end up seeing statues of himself being spread around, but he was convinced by a sound argument put forth by his Lo'taur and First Prime. Which was extremely satisfying in of itself.
Funnily enough the first statue that his people wanted to make was one of Hedwig, who had taken to following around either Ana, or Ishta whenever they went about their daily lives when she was not sleeping. His people felt that Hedwig watched over them for him when he was not around, and it did not help that she gave them the impression that she understood everything said to her, which she kinda did. Or that she had brought issues to his attention in her own way, by smacking his head with her wing and slamming a telepathic message into his head, which she was getting better and better at since the ritual he had used to empower her.
While he did not want to test it out, he was almost sure his little rebirth addition to the ritual had taken hold as Hedwig looked almost like a snow phoenix now with how that her feathers almost glowed. It certainly had made her seem smarter than before, if that was at all possible, as she was a smart owl to begin with. His people had really latched onto her as a symbol of his power that they could worship. He was not entirely opposed to that, as it would be better than having his 'likeness' plastered all over the place like Jesus.
"Sir, I have an update for you regarding an urgent development at the SGC." Javis said breaking him out of his thoughts.
"What have they done now?" he asked a bit exacerbated due to the sure canny knack the SGC and SG1 in particular had for getting into trouble.
"It would appear they have encountered an Advanced human race they just rescued from a dying planet." Javis replied with his dapper British accent.
"It there any major threats from them to the planet atm?" he asked Jarvis as he started to open the file that had been sent to his Armband.
"It does not appear so sir, as the Aliens seem to be cooperating. I have sent the relevant SGC reports and what has been collected by our cloaked espionage probe to you." Javis finished his report, leaving Harry to think about the latest developments.
It seemed that the SGC had gotten themselves into even more trouble only weeks after they almost got the entire planet destroyed by a device hidden inside a child brought back to Earth through the gate. Honestly he really was going to have to deal with Nirti sooner rather than later if this kept up, as she was becoming even more of a threat to himself, and his people. Especially with her failed attempt to attack one his currently mothballed mining worlds in what he suspected was revenge for him claiming back the Ancient device on S-1 that Pelops used in the creation of the Jaffa. The problem was that she didn't have a typical throneworld she used any longer since she lost her status as a System Lord, instead she moves between a number of hidden bases. This made tracking her down incredibly difficult.
With that thought in mind and before he got carried away with the most recent event going on at the SGC, he decided to call Dobby about an idea he had for a special team of Elves.
"Dobby" he called out softly just looking up in time to see Winky popping in, instead of Dobby. Ooh this couldn't be good.
"My lord Harry, Dobby bes off working on the magical zoo planet you two has been cookings up." Winky said with the best version of an evil eye Harry thought a House Elf would be able to produce. It seemed Dobby had been spending a bit too much time away from home and his hunny bun was not exactly happy. "I wills be telling him you called when he returns this evening." Winky said as she popped away. He would have to talk to Dobby about balancing his time better, maybe he could get Winky and their new child into movies or something for family bonding time.
That was fine as there was no rush to his idea for creating a secret covert group of Elves that could go through the gate and collect information on targets he needs found, or about things he may need to know about. Reporting back all the juicy tidbits he may want to know. Currently he relies to heavily on the gossip he gains from the open communication channels the Goa'uld sometimes visited, and the few messages sent on the System frequency he still got as technically Pelops was a System Lord, even if his power was slightly lower than most of the others. On top of those sources, he only had his own sensor data and what his trade missions learnt to figure out what was going on in the wider galaxy. The fact that he employed no other minor Goa'uld in his service really limited the amount of gossip and news that made it to him.
Dobby would be perfect for the role of getting a group of House Elves together to facilitate their infiltrations. He definitely had watched enough spy movies by now to know quite a bit of how to go about things, or at least enough that it wouldn't matter against the Goa'uld. Especially with the fact that they can use their magic on top of whatever method they glean from movies, haha. Honestly he was not quite sure why he did not think of something like this before. He would have to make sure he makes a few pieces of Elf size technology for them to use as well.
Getting back to the report on hand, he was thankful that it seemed Nirti was not a fault for the latest event going on at the SGC, because apparently SG1 had rescued some really advanced people from an unstable planet before they were about to die to exposure from rampant Volcanic activity. Though a good handful had already perished before SG1 had arrived. The interesting thing was that these people were humans, and were still being held on Earth as the SGC tried to figure out what to do with them.
He sent a message to his Captain of his Flagship to monitor the mountain a bit more closely while these offworld guests were around. It would also give him a good idea how the American government may handle having access to some more advanced peoples. How they managed this event could say a lot about how he should go about contacting them in the future. Though it was becoming ever more apparent to him that contact was going to happen sooner rather than later, and it was only luck that they hadn't already dialed one of his planets and walked into one of his Stargate facilities. That being said he certainly was going to start using the term Stargate instead of Chappa'ai as it simply rolled off the tongue far more smoothly.
Honestly the SGC really made it hard to take a more hands off approach to Earth, with them nearly destroying it every other week.
A/N: So I know there is no major cliffhanger or anything here but I hope everyone can see the possible setup for the next few chapters, next of which takes place during the season finale of season 1 of Stargate SG1. Sorry to those who were hoping that this was going to be the great meet between Harry and SG1 in this chapter, that is not the case and that is coming in chapter 11.
This chapter mainly wraps up the year of 1997 in the story and brings us to the start of 1998 for those who were wondering about the time frame atm in the story. Thanks for all those who review and I hope to read more of them in the future. If you have a burning question either send me a message or leave a review with a question for me to answer. Don't be afraid to message me a few days later if you think I have missed your question in your review, it can happen sometimes. Once again thanks for all the support and especially to those few extra engaged readers I have, it helps me get through the slog of having to edit my dyslexic riddle mess of my writing into something my betas can go over.