Note: Another x-over chapter. This one it is spread around the whole year. That leave a lot of blank spaces which will be filled in later chapters. And from now on I will post x-ove chapters in both strories as there will be SG-1 only chapters in the Gate Lawyers. This should make the reading easier.
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Chapter 25 – Millennium and Metrics
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0820 local, Monday 4th January 1999, JAG HQ
Admiral knew that with the new year and the finally passed laws and governmental directives he had to inform all his staff. It gave him headache because after years of talking about it President finally signed the adoption of SI units. Most of his officers served abroad so they used the international units like speed and distance in kilometers during their stay in Europe or Japan. Problem was the transition period that would start in July. They would need to write both systems in their reports for some time to get around the general confusion.
He asked the judges and most of the administrative staff to attend this meeting too. They used the whole conference room and some of the younger officers had to sit at chairs by the walls. After all of them gathered he addressed them. "Thank you all for coming here. The issue that I want to cover here today is the change of measurement system that will occur this and the next year. President signed the documents and special executive orders to finally move with the rest of the world to the metric system."
This made some of the present officers to murmur. Most of them had to learn the international units in school but after that they forgot about them as everyday life was measured in inches pounds and Fahrenheit.
"President is going to address the general public this evening but there are few things you need to know before that press conference. The change will occur in stages. The first stage is already complete. Science community and some others use SI for the general purposes for some time. Now is time to start making change in the government and public services. The first batch will change from the First of July. We are not part of that first batch of commands that had to use metric system by July but we will interact with Spec Ops and some others that will."
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1015 local, Monday, 4th January 1999, SGC
With General Hammond still on leave with his grandchildren this briefing was up to Jack. It was important one so there were more people than the briefing room could normally handle. Most of them had to sit on additional chairs or stood by the walls.
"First, I would like to wish you all Happy New Year."
"Now, back to the issue why I ordered all of you here." Jack picked the papers he up to that moment had on the table. "These are brand new government directives and executive orders concerning the adoption of the SI system. As you may know we are one of the last countries that do not use "metric" system."
Younger officers were confused a little.
"President and DOD ordered that unlike the rest of the country all military, scientific and central governmental offices had to use only SI units beginning next year. We as a specific command are under even more time pressure. We will have to start to use meters and kilograms from the first of July this year. After that for the rest of this year we will use both system just to be sure that there is no confusion. Than it will be metric only."
The scientists and some of the engineers looked happy. Before they signed for this job many of them worked in agencies or companies that already used SI. It became more and more apparent that companies working with international partners or exporting needed to use the wide-world spread units to measure if they did not wanted to make their calculations in both systems.
"For those of you that were never stationed abroad and have already forgot your school years there are small differences that are easy to accept like we already accepted soda bottles that are made as 1 or 2 liters. The big differences is the speed. 50 miles per hour is a lot faster than 50 kilometers per hour and than there is temperature. Water boil at 100 degree Celsius and freezes at zero. So your normal temperature is not ninety five but 36 point 5."
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1100 local, Wednesday 2nd June 1999, SGC
Jack stormed into Sam's lab. "Carter, I need your report by the end of the week. Pentagon wants update on how we are prepared."
"Sir!" Sam was glad that she did not run any sort of experiment. She actually worked on the report most of the morning "I have it nearly done. I only need few minor details from Bill Lee."
"That's good. Joint Chiefs wants to know about the progress we made so far. Apparently there is some delay in the special ops and they fear that we had fallen behind as well."
Sam wrote few more notes on her laptop. "Not going to happen here."
Jack sat on the edge of Sam's desk and looked at her. "I know. With your skills we will be switched before the rest of us notice it."
"I try. But what if we screw up the units anyway and some experiment turn up bad?"
"I tried to check with Harm but he did not answered my calls. I got Mac on the phone instead. She told me that if something happen we should find out what happened first and we should call JAG only if there is something we could not deal with here."
"So same as usual. I think that this do not call help from outside is going to be norm here for some time." Sam now completely forgot about her report and turned on another of her laptops. On this one she stored her non essential data.
"What list are you making now?"
"Oh, nothing important. I just remembered that we need update on our mission equipment and we also need to make sure that we are on the same page with NORAD."
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1720 local, Tuesday, 13th July 1999, JAG HQ
"Damn, I should have remembered that SEALs were on the first batch of units that made the transition to meters. Now we have the whole report wrong." Mac was pissed at herself. It was her mistake. She was irritated lately. She did not had the comfort of Harm's ear and strong arms that seemed to solve everything lately.
Bud looked at the report and compared it to his own notes. It did not looked as bad as Mac thought. "Ma'am, I think that most of numbers are right. Only these in the first two statements are wrong. The others are in the metric system and we can correct these mistakes easily."
Technically it was not that huge mistake. The case depended on the distance that SEAL team used to adjust their support fire. From Bud's notes she saw that the first two members of the team used yards and the others used meters but they told that they meant meters. "We still need to check everything in the whole case and correct it if necessary."
"That will take some time, ma'am." Bud did not liked the fact that he would have to stay at the office later that he expected. He hoped for evening spent with Harriet. They found nice place from where they could watch the sunset but it seemed they would have to wait another day for that.
"Bud, I'm sorry for holding you here but I really need you to check it with me." It was all thanks to the fact that Harm was gone. One more week and everything should be fine again.
Bud sighed. "I know. Actually I'm glad you found it before Admiral or Judge Sebring. That would be much worse."
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1400 local, Sunday 8th August 1999, Harm's apartment
"It's great, mom. I'm sure Mac will be glad to see you here. … I know you said you will come for her birthday but this is fine too."
"What?" asked Mac as she looked up from the magazine she read.
"Frank is coming here the day after tomorrow with some others from Chrysler and other companies to discuss the change with departments of transportation and treasure. Apparently they agreed on some sort of free of charge change of speed meters so our cars will be able to measure speed in kph instead in mph. And mom is coming with him here."
Mac smiled. That brought her back to something that she wanted to talk about with Harm for some time now. After Harm put down the phone Mac hugged him from behind. "Harm, we need a new car."
"You don't like driving in the Corvette with me?"
"I love that and you know I enjoyed driving it while you were gone but I want something we can put more stuff in. That and I would like to drive to the farm even in the winter. My car is not good for that and Corvette is best suited for good weather."
"Why don't we wait until next year and buy one that we will not have to put to service to change the speed meter after just a few months."
"Haaarm!"
"OK. Lets look what we could get. There should be enough online catalogs to decide what we want."
It took them rest of the evening but they finally found car that both of them liked and they would not need to wait for until the producer would built it. "Harm, do you see the price?"
Harm looked at it. It was well inside of their planned budget but he was more interested in technical details than the price until now. "Pretty cheap for this. There must be something wrong with it."
Mac looked that the technical info and found it first. "They should not be put on the marked here. Looks like there were bigger demand than expected and these were made for Canada. Speed meters are in kph and other parameters are certified in meters too. No wonder they put them for sale on the internet only."
Harm knew from his stepfather that next year cars would be produced from late September or early October depending on the model. From what he remembered from their conversation all American car producers made cars that could be certified for both US and Canadian markets. Some like Ford even made sure that the same models could be sold in Europe. So the they found was certified according to Canadian standards and these were nearly identical to the new American ones. "You still want it?"
"If we can get it than yes." Mac knew that this car was exactly what she dreamed for. When they would have kids this car was big enough to put them there with their stuff and lot of groceries.
Harm put light kiss on Mac's lips before he made his decision. "So we should talk to someone that can actually sell it to us."
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1320 local, Monday 8th November 1999, SGC
"Carter, have a minute?" asked Jack as he waked into her lab.
"Yup." Sam smiled at him. She hid not worked on anything important. Lately most of their missions supplied scientist with writings from different cultures or some new minerals to study but not much turned up in her lab.
"Got a word from a friend on the Mars probe investigation board."
"So?" Sam was little curious about that. She knew some of the scientists that worked on the probe. She even used the same equipment that NASA sent to Mars on that probe for some of her experiment and field detectors.
"They are sure that the problem was with the ground software. It used pound-seconds and miles for calculations of trajectory change and guys in JPL burned the probe thanks to this."
"Will that affect the change to metric system?" Sam feared that. With some help from Jack and Janet she made sure that the whole SGC now used only SI units. She went ahead of the orders but she wanted no mix-ups. Some of the experiments could end up badly if you used wrong units. Put 10 pounds of pressure or 10 Newtons and the device could explode or you just destroy it instead of activate it.
"There sure will be some fight over it on Capitol Hill and media will add to it but we are already too far in the process. It would be nuts to change back and our industry would make sure that the government would pay for it."
That was one way to look at it. The second was that the rest of the world would make jokes about it. The only remaining superpower and it was not strong enough to bear the change and stepped back. That would put them years back on the political and probably even on economical and scientific level. "I will not change my labs back!"
"And you will not have to." Jack meant it. If the worst would come he was determined to fight the regression at lest for the whole Stargate program.
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1st January 2000
All Americans that went to bed last night or early that morning woke up to different world. It was the same as always but at the same time it was very different. In Washington there was 5 below zero and 10 centimeters of snow instead of 23 degrees and four inches. Television and radio stations actually made the weather reports and news in the units that rest of the world used and understood instead of the now old imperial ones. Government knew that no law or other legislation could wipe out the old units from the society as a lot of people were too accustomed to it but since nearly half of the nation knew the SI units from their school years it was only matter of time until the reason would unite the Americans with the rest of the World.
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Next chapter – Silent Service
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