Jump Chain Gothic 4 - Part 1 - Atlantis

by gothicjedi666

The fourth part of my Jump Chain series of stories. It will start in the Pegasus galaxy and then branch out to the wider universe. The story will also feature Stargate characters. Warnings for all adult themes.

26. Chapter 26

Jump Chain Gothic 4 - Atlantis

Part 26

Annwn. Milky Way Galaxy.

While the journey to this galaxy had been thankfully unadventurous, as hyperspace travel nearly always was, landing the city-ship turned out to be a bit hair raising. City-ship normally landed on water, or on specially prepared landing platforms, and this case the Asgard had provided the needed smooth bit of ground for us.

However while the landing had been simple enough actually going from space to the ground hadn't been so easy for me mentally. While the heat caused by entry into a planet's atmosphere, as well as turbulence, were handled by systems on board the city-ship I'd been connected those systems, and I felt the strain.

Since I knew what horrible thing would happen should those systems fail I'd spent the entire trip down forcing myself to focus on the landing least my imagining of a shield failure somehow cause the shields to somehow go down because of the link between the city-ship and my mind.

Annwn was just a shade smaller than Earth, meaning its gravity was slightly less than that of my homeworld, but not in a way a person could detect with sensitive scientific instruments.

Its surface was covered by a considerable amount of water. Almost ninety percent in fact, with only two continents worthy of the name, each smaller than Australia, with the rest of the landmass, such as it was, made up of island chains.

The landing platform the Asgard had placed was on an island that made one of the larger island chains, the chain was in the northern hemisphere, and close enough to the equator to be considered pleasantly warm without us having to worry about tropical storms and the like.

Also since the Alterans had seeded life in this galaxy, using Earth as a template, which was why you got trees, blue skies and grasslands on so many planets reachable via the Stargate, this planet was habitable by humans. In fact it already had a small human population.

Of course there were mountain ranges, deserts and oceans too, on this world and others, no world that support human life had a single type of biosphere, that was something science fiction so often got wrong.

Okay so you could have planets like Earth that were going through an ice age, but then you could argue that they weren't habitable anymore.

"Everything feels right" I said as the control chair moved to an upright position.

A lot of Ancient technology was mentally controlled, and while city-ships could feed information directly into a person's mind even an 'evolved' human like me wasn't able to full digest everything so I was left with an impression more than anything else.

Part of this was due to how tired I was. Had I been more awake I would have a better understanding of the city-ships state, however if there was anything majorly wrong the Ancients at the controls would be altering me even now, and I was sure that the city-ship would have let me know if there was a major problem.

"I'm going to get some sleep" I told anyone who was listening "Wake me up only if we're in mortal danger".

Once I'd gotten my rest I'd go back to becoming very busy again as before the Confederation could be born I still had a few other matters to deal with.

(Line Break)

Annwn. Milky Way Galaxy.

I was currently sitting in my office in what passed for Stargate Operations within my city-ship. The Stargate, which was a Pegasus model taken from the Genii, sat in a different room that Tali was currently working on security features for.

As for I was trying to make an inventory. Before I invited worlds to ally with or join my Confederation I wanted to find out what kind of assets I could call upon. This could be very important later on.

Inventory.

1 City Ship (twenty puddle jumpers) (several hundred drones)

1 Aurora-class warship (seventeen puddle jumpers (several hundred drones)

1 Modified Wraith Cruiser

1 Delta Flyer

1 Mass Effect shuttle (upgraded with Starfleet tech)

That was as far as I got before Miranda walked to my office. She was carrying a data padd, and I figured that she was hard at work.

"I know you want me to take care of the day to day stuff" she said "But before we invite anyone into the city, there are a few things we need to discuss".

Miranda was good at keeping things organised, she could handle the logistics without my aid, but I was the leader so she needed to run certain things by me.

"We've got more than enough rooms for visiting diplomats" she told me, after sitting down "But since we want to keep people out of the central tower we need to be careful where we place stuff like the markets, the schools, and the hospital".

While the people who would staff those places hadn't even been picked yet I figured that Miranda was right to sort this out now. We didn't want people entering this tower, which was suppose to be the secure part of the city, when they were trying to get to what should be a public area.

"Let's get some coffee before we sort this out" I said.

Thankfully my office had a small replicator so I wouldn't have to wait long for the vital infusion of caffeine.

(Line Break)

Merlin's Tomb. Milky Way Galaxy.

This variant of the Repository of Knowledge, which was located here in Merlin's tomb, did work as the Ancient had promised, and how I'd long suspected that it would work. The device did not in fact contain all the knowledge of the Ancients just that which Merlin had known.

While that was a heck of a lot of info it wasn't more than an advanced human like me could handle, and it still left me with much to learn. Which was good for me as if I'd learned everything there was for a human to learn, well then my life wouldn't be worth living.

What knowledge I had was centred around the technology Merlin had created, and the science required for the technology. I now knew all about phase cloaks, solid holograms, Ancient computer systems, and all about the sangraal. There was more, but it would take some time for my mind to make sense of everything.

I also knew that when the Repository of Knowledge was used in conjunction with a Molecular Construction Device, which I now understood how to use and to build, the device allowed one to visualize a program or a machine, and then create it.

This version of the Repository was interactive, and not only set to download information directly into a mind, but also receive it. Meaning that in theory I could upload knowledge I had and then someone else could have it downloaded into their mind, but normal humans could handle that sort of thing.

It could also encode the DNA and the consciousness of an individual and download it into another person's brain and then return the altered brain to a previous state after a certain amount of time had passed. Of note was that he uploaded mind could in theory take over whomever it was downloaded into, and replace the existing mind.

This technology must be related to whatever tech it was the Asgard use to transfer their minds into clone bodies, and because I had the Still In There perk I could, at least in theory, transfer my mind into a clone body. However since I could gain a new, younger body at the start of every Jump, a body I could modify the DNA of thanks to the tech I had claimed during this Jump, there was little sense taking such a risk.

Using the Repository, which had two rods that slid out at the bottom of the device, a person with an advanced mine could create any object at the molecular level, although this took a great deal of concentration.

In the show Merlin used his Repository to recreate the Sangraal as much as he could and then transferred both his memories and quasi-ascended powers to Dr. Daniel Jackson when he was too weak to continue (even programming a failsafe into this transfer that erased the modifications made to Jackson's mind and body to compensate for the weaknesses of human physiology). The device was then moved aboard an Ori warship and used by Jackson to complete the Sangraal, which was then used to eliminate the Ori in their home galaxy.

My intention was also to use this device, but I would place it within the Cosmic Warehouse, and once inside there I could build my own Sangraal, and to the knowledge I'd obtained I could use to destroy creatures that lived in higher planes of existence.

In time I would be modify the device so that it could destroy beings that lived in other levels of existence, such as many kinds of gods, this would be a very potent weapon when I go to the Warhammer verse as I might even able to use the Sangraal to wipe out the gods of chaos. Assuming that was possible.

An unexpected, but very welcome, bonus was that I now knew how Merlin had been able to use his near-ascended powers to play the role of wizard, including the trick he used to make Baal unable to take. Given that my future would involve meetings with many diplomats I was glad to have this knowledge.

"We need to pack all this up and get back to the ship" I told my team.

My plans were progressing very well, and this greatly pleased me. I was exploiting the hell out of this Jump, and doing so in such a way that hopefully I should be able to handle whatever it was future Jumps threw at me.

(Line Break)

Asgard Ship. Earth Orbit.

Not long after the city-ship had landed on the planet Annwn, and after I'd returned from Merlin's cave, Cameron, Seven of Nine, and I left on Thor's battleship, heading to Earth, a trip which took seconds. Once we'd arrived Seven of Nine had begun using this ship's scanners to search for a vault at Lundy Island.

Before coming here I'd asked Thor to scan the world called Annwn for a vault, and while we'd found one it had been empty. Which wasn't a surprise as the legend spoke of Arthur and his knights coming to Annwn to recover the treasures.

They must have gone through the gate to, recovered the treasures, which were in fact devices that Merlin had either created, like Arthur's mantle, or that he'd stored for safekeeping, like the long-distance communication device that was linked to the Ori controlled galaxy, which was somewhere in this universe.

Lundy Island, or Ynys Wair to use its Welsh name, was the largest island in the Bristol Channel. It lies about 12 miles (or 19 km) off the coast of Devon, England, about a third of the distance across the channel from Devon to South Wales.

According to the data the scanners were getting the island had a resident population of 28 people. Most of which live in and around the village at the south part of the island. There were some signs of tourism, mostly day-trippers, although there was what seemed to be a camp sight with some people staying in it.

It was a good place to hide a vault full of advanced tech as very people even knew the island existed.

"So any sign of another vault?" I asked.

Seven was running yet another scan, as she did I noted that her clothes were more reasonable. Which meant that her bodysuit wasn't so tight and her shoes were more practical. However she still wore a stylish collar, a sign of her submission towards me.

"No Captain" she reported.

Given that I'd soon be the leader of a galactic human government, or at least the attempt at one, I'd need a new title. Nothing too pretentious of course, the Confederation would concern itself with the defense, foreign relations, trade between worlds, and stuff like that, without getting too involved with its member's internal affairs. As such I wouldn't be crowning myself emperor or naming myself president, I'd need a more suitable title.

Perhaps I could call myself the Premier and have each member world selected someone to serve on a council that I could led, and that council would be the group that decided what the Confederation go up to while remaining under my guidance. Then when it was time for me to step down the ruling council could simply chose a new leader from the members of the council.

Although given that the Asgard, Jaffa, and the Tok'ra were all ruled over by a council of some sort I'd have to give me council a different name. Maybe it called it the Confederation Assembly.

I pushed those thoughts out of mind and forced myself to focus on the task at hand. Thankfully with my awesome brain my trail of thought hadn't taken long to get through so not much time had passed since Seven of Nine had last spoke.

"Scan for lepton radiation" I ordered.

Knowledge given to me by Merlin's Repository of Knowledge let me know that Merlin had taken the entire vault out of phase. Alas Merlin had not kept detailed notes on everything he did, or at least hadn't uploaded everything, so I didn't know exactly what was in the vault, but I was now sure that t was there.

"We are detecting low levels of lepton radiation coming from a source deep underground" Thor reported.

I thought about what to do.

"Thor do you have a device that allows people to virtually build things?" I asked.

I was almost certain he did as O'Neill used such a device to build an anti-replicator weapons, but not all models of Asgard ship might carry one. I did have such a device, and it was on Thor's ship since we'd used his vessel, which was still faster than mine, to quickly move around the Milky Way. However that device had no power at the moment.

"This ship has that technology" Thor informed me "Why do you ask?".

I smiled.

"We'll need to be out of phase in order to access the Vault" I explained "So if I build a phase cloak for your ship, we can go out of phase and then beam down into the vault. Once we've emptied the vault, we beam back to the ship, and we just come back out of phase".

Thor blinked at me, which I knew was an emotional response of some sort. I suspected that he was impressed by the cleverness of my plan.

"The Asgard would be most grateful for that technology" he said.

Yes I imagined they would, and if I gave them phase cloaking then they were far less likely to request I had over any of Merlin's treasure. And while phase cloak tech would make the Asgard more powerful it hardly mattered as they could already utterly destroy me whenever they wished.

(Line Break)

Lundy Island. Earth.

I'd been right. There was in fact a vault filled with treasure. Most of which was useless to me as it was just piles of gold, silver with jewelry and gemstones, stuff I could easily get from the replicator, and as such the wealth here would be handed over to the British government like the treasure in Glastonbury Tor had been.

By what means the little grey people would give the wealth to the British government was unknown to me, but I assumed that they had contact with Russell Chapman, who was the representative of for the UK on the IOA, and that he sorted stuff like this out as he had to useful for something.

However there was some advanced technology here. Which I would not be handing over to any government. Only my group as well as the Asgard and the Ancients who even know it the stuff existed. Some tech was just too powerful and dangerous to entrust the likes of the Tauri.

Technically it all belonged to Merlin, who was the leader of Atlantis these days, but he'd never asked for any of it, despite him knowing that I coveted his knowledge and advanced technology. Even when I'd taken an entire city-ship all he'd done was assign a few of his people to help take care of it. As such I assumed that I had his blessing to loot this stuff, but that for some reason he didn't want anyone knowing that.

Unlike other storehouses belonging to Merlin this place was not guarded by a holographic knight, and when I'd pulled the sword from the stone it had just returned the vault to this dimension, bringing it back into phase. Putting the vault out of phase had been the place's only defence, and I could see why Merlin had gone to all that trouble.

The vault had a few of the items that were Merlin inventions, like the device called the Mantle of Arthur.

My attention was drawn to sword I'd pulled from the stone in order to bring down the phase cloak, which had also brought Cameron, Seven and I out of phase at the same time. At first I thought it was just another sword in the stone like the one I'd taken from the planet Camelot back when I'd been looking for Merlin.

The sword I'd found is Glastonbury Tor had been a solid hologram of some sort, and the sword at Camelot had been a physical object made using some sort of advanced metallurgy.

This weapon was different than the others, it wasn't a hologram, or a sword made just from advanced materials, it was sort of device. It was sword, but when I held the weapon in my hand, I knew at once how to trigger some sort of technology inside the blade that made the metal part of the sword glow with a hazy blue light.

I soon tested the sword and found that when energised that the blade could cut through the rock that surrounded us, and the cut area wasn't melted nor it was it even hot. Which meant the glow wasn't caused by some sort of plasma.

This was when my new knowledge told me that this was some sort of power weapons, like those from Warhammer 40k, although Merlin didn't call this technology by that name. What made the sword work was the power field generator concealed within the hilt of the weapon. The rest of the weapon didn't matter so much as it the power field that did all of the work.

Those weapons in the 40K verse were surrounded with a hazy field of bluish energy just as this weapon was. Asided form that they looked like ordinary swords, or whatever weapon it was the power field had been added to.

Power weapons were capable of disrupting the molecular bonds of whatever matter they strike. Which meant that this sword would seem to cut through even the toughest of materials, although I didn't know how effective they would be against personal shields, but thankfully in this universe, outside of my group, that was a rare technology.

My new knowledge would allow me recreate this technology so that I could create more power weapons, but this was of limited use as no one in my group ever used a melee weapon. There wasn't much reason to when we could beam people in space or just vapourise them.

I also knew that Merlin had created a few of these power weapons, and no doubt in this universe Excalibur was one such device.

"According this record" Seven said as she consulted a scroll Merlin must have written centuries ago "This weapon is called the The Dyrnwyn, or White-Hilt"

That was one of the treasures Arthur and his knights were supposed to have recovered from the world known as Annwn, which did have an empty vault, and there hadn't even been a holographic knight defending the place. Although there may have been at one point as there was a stone in that vault which could have held a sword.

This sword had a white hilt, which only supported the idea that is was that legendary weapon. Which was actually rather cool, sure it wasn't Excalibur or Caliburn (the original sword in the stone) but it was still nice to have the weapon.

"I've read of it" I told Seven "In the tales it's a powerful sword belonging to Rhydderch Hael, one of the Three Generous Men of Britain mentioned in the Welsh Triads. When drawn by a worthy or well-born man, the entire blade would blaze with fire".

Which it actually didn't, but I could see how a more primitive people could mistake the power field for some kind of blue coloured flames.

"Rhydderch was never reluctant to hand the weapon to anyone, hence his nickname Hael "the Generous" I finished by saying.

The sword was genelocked as well as having a mentally controlled power field. The genelock meant that you needed the ATA gene to use the weapon. Which would be why Hael never minded people borrowing the sword as it wouldn't work for them unless they also had the ATA gene.

One of the things I knew about Arthur and his knights was that they all had the ATA gene naturally, like Jack O'Neill or John Sheppard, because they were all descended from one or more of the Lanteans who came to Earth when they left Atlantis, which meant they were more 'evolved' than other humans.

Merlin was also able to alter human DNA to 'evolve' them slightly, but he'd not so for the knights of the roundtable.

The same applied to Padarn's coat which perfectly fits any brave man, but will not fit cowards. In this reality it was a suit of armour, one that Merlin had made, like the armour we had, which were modified versions of Vanir environment suits, this armour would adjust to fit the wearer and also it required the ATA gene which Arthur and his knights had possessed.

In terms of appearance the armour looked as if someone had taken the materials used in the outer layer of a Kull warrior's armour, and made into a suit of armour that a medieval knight might wear. Which made sense as the material science behind Kull warrior armour was Ancient rather than Goa'uld.

However it was less clunky that real medieval armour, and I figured that it was a lot more comfortable to wear as well. Plus I would feel less like a dork for wearing it as Merlin had a better sense of taste than I would have given him credit for,

I imagined that this armour could absorb a lot of energy and provide protection from many forms of harm. In fact if the materials were as tough as I suspected (Merlin hadn't recorded everything in his repository so I didn't know for sure) then it would take a power weapon to stab someone who was wearing this suit.

"Do you know why Merlin created these technologies?" enquired Seven of Nine.

As a matter of fact I did.

"Merlin retook human form because he was concerned about the Ori" I started to explain "Everything he did once retaking human form was geared towards defeating them. While the Sangraal was his endgame, and he created the Mantle of Arthur to hide his research, not everything he did was about the Sangraal. He knew that the mortal servants of the Ori would try to convert to humans of this galaxy by force, and maybe the ones in Pegasus too, so that the Ori could feed off their worship. He knew that this would involve a war and so he planned for it".

Merlin helped Arthur to ascend so that Arthur could retake human form when the human slaves of the Ori invaded and lead the fight against them. For some reason Arthur didn't show up when the Ori invaded in the show.

Orlin did take human form however in order to help, but I didn't think he'd been Arthur at any point as I was pretty sure that he'd been an Ancient during his mortal life and not Tauri. Also he wasn't a fighter or a leader.

Something must have gone wrong, something that wasn't mentioned in the cultural database I got from Daniel Jackson or known to Merlin. Arthur was wounded when he was taken to Avalon to ascended so perhaps he died before he could ascended, or maybe he was prevented from taking human form again.

"He actually founded the Knights of the Roundtable as the start of an army to fight the Ori invasion" I told Seven "You can imagine how deadly trained knights with power weapons and advanced armour would be when facing people the Ori drafted into their army".

Which would have made for a way more awesome season ten of Stargate then what we saw on TV. Alas instead of the return of King Arthur, who could have enough near-ascended powers to match the Orici, and some new knights of the roundtable, we got the writers attempting to shoehorn in two people from Farscape into the show.

"Anyway while Merlin was still putting his plans into action Morgan Le Fey turned up and Merlin ended up in stasis" I was now saying "So it's good that I warned the Asgard about the Ori because one day they will invade this galaxy".

The Ori didn't ascend their followers, but the Ancients did allow others into their ranks. I knew this because I'd helped an entire village worth of people ascend, so if the Ori weren't already outnumbered they would one day be and the power they got from their followers wouldn't be enough if the Ancients decided to go kick their non-corporeal backsides.

Assuming of course that someone didn't somehow alert the Ori to the fact that humans lived in this galaxy, which could still happen as there might be more than one of those long-distance communication devices just waiting to be dug up.

"Come on let's look around some more" I said next "We need to gather up all the tech and the scrolls that explain what all this stuff is".

Another of the treasures was a holographic chess set, the board projected the pieces and they were moved via verbal commands. Not exactly useful since I already had holographic technology, so for now it would go in the Cosmic Warehouse until I had a use for it. Perhaps I would return to Merlin as a gesture of friendship.

One of the treasures we were seeking was the chariot belonging to Morgan Mwynfawr ("the Wealthy") was described as a magical vehicle which would quickly reach whatever destination one might wish to go to. This turned out to be a Puddle Jumper, which again made sense as Merlin would understand the technology behind the craft.

What Seven found in the back of the small ship made me wonder if it was the time machine created my Janus. Only it turned it turned out to be something much, much cooler.

"It's a reality drive!" I yelled out.

Like the one on the alternate version of the Daedalus, as seen in the episode Daedalus Variations, this drive was designed to transport matter through something called the Matter bridge to access alternate realities. It was powered by a device that tapped the vast energies of space space providing near Zero Point Module levels of power.

Despite its function of transporting ships to alternate realities, the ship would remain in exactly the same position so I used it now I'd still be in Merlin's vault under Lundy Island, but I'd be an alternate universe, and possible in solid rock if the vault didn't exist there.

A quick look through the ship's log confirmed what I already suspected, and possible did know on some level. This Jumper was the creation of Janus rather than Merlin, and it had been built to reach other dimensions.

Apparently Janus gave up on time travel, and I didn't blame him given how problematic it could be, and he'd began looking for a reality that more suited him. The log didn't mention why the craft was abandoned, and nor did I know how Merlin got his hands on it. But I didn't care as it was mine now.

I also found a note taped to what passed for the windscreen on a Puddle Jumper.

This will only take you alternate versions of the Stargate Verse

It was signed by Jump Chan, so I gathered that she didn't want me using it to reach other science fiction settings, which made sense as that would sort of defeat the purpose of being in a Jump Chain.

"We should move the ship and the other pieces of technology to the city-ship as soon as possible so that I can begin to study them" Seven said to me.

Yes that was a good idea as I didn't even want the Asgard knowing that I had an engine that could reach other realities. Plus I wanted her to make sure it was safe before we tested it, and if possible the drive should be installed on my Aurora-class as taking a warship made more sense since other realities could be filled with some very hostile things.

Still I also didn't want to wait too long before I could check out some alternate realities as they could have tech I hadn't seen before, and in those timelines people long since dead could still be alive. Seven would have to bring this tech to the top of her very big to do pile otherwise I would go totally mad.