Area-51
Nevada, Earth
Milky Way Galaxy

Stargate Command was the most secretive facility on the planet, nobody outside of the bubble knew it existed, and, in part, Area-51 played its role in that continued secrecy; the top-secret base that everybody knew existed. The suspicious, the conspiracy theorists, the straight up crackpots all paid attention to the comings and goings in the Nevada desert, a handy game of sleight of hand to keep anyone from paying any notice at all to the facility at Cheyenne Mountain.

Not that anybody would see much of interest these days, with Rings, Asgard teleporters and cloaking barriers, the really exciting stuff was kept way out of sight.

The base had become the lead location for the research and development of Earth's most advanced technologies, teams beavering away on next generation hyperdrives, deciphering the Ancient database, working on the Asgard problem, picking through the wrecks of Ori warships and a dozen other projects as secret as it was possible for anything to be.

Therefore, among those who knew it existed, it made being posted to Area-51 a rather prestigious accolade, not least being appointed 'Director of Research.' Credit and being recognised as a special intellect were big motivators, big enough to lure McKay from Atlantis.

Having beamed in from the home he shared with Dr Keller, he began making his way to his lab, 30 stories underneath the burning desert above, he walked down a corridor, lined with holographic screens depicting a cool meadow, the climate controls doing their best to simulate the experience, apparently aimed at improving the mental health of those who spent more of their lives in their shared underground box than he did. Rodney found it rather ridiculous, outwardly at least, yet he always chose this particular route, over the regular corridor journey that was also available.

His laboratory covered much of this floor of the base, state of the art, the latest in Earth based technology, and a few bits and pieces brought in especially from the Lost City. He had long been frustrated in his quest to replicate the Potentia devices, or, as they were more commonly called, Zero Point Modules. The holy grail of energy generation. While the naquadah fusion reactors, or even the Asgard power cores that were available to Earth were night and day compared to the fossil fuel, fission and renewable energy sources most of the world were familiar with, even if they didn't know about the true source of the new fusion reactors that were beginning to appear, the ZPM was something else entirely, a single one could meet all of Earth's energy needs for a mindboggling length of time, or, power up the 307 class ships to their full potential.

Never mind what a fully powered Atlantis could achieve, or a means to repower the repaired Ancient weapons platform, damaged by the Wraith attack, it could no longer take a traditional ZPM.
Quite why Atlantis wasn't capable of producing them, or at least having an instruction manual for making them had been a point of contention for Rodney. The Ancients left things scattered across two galaxies, much of it ostensibly for humanity to find and use, yet had apparently decided that the means to power them was something to hide away, or not bother writing down in the first place.

Teams were of course hunting through the Ancient database, convinced it would be in there somewhere, and he assumed it was, but, well, the Asgard had the same database for millennia and had never uncovered it, so he wasn't going to place many eggs in that basket.

So, McKay was here, working the problem. His initial boasts of having a working ZPM ready for the launch of the Enterprise, the first 307 class vessel, had, unsurprisingly, bit him in the ass. Keller had scolded him over it. He did try to be a little humbler, for her sake as much as anything else. He'd been forced to rethink his original estimates, copying advanced technology had worked well enough for Earth, mostly Asgard and Goa'uld derived Ancient stuff had proven easy to replicate, if not always fully understand, at least for some of his erstwhile colleagues certainly, but the ZPM was different. In many ways, it was the most advanced piece of technology he had ever encountered. Creating a pocket universe, containing it and then drawing power from it. It was an almost utterly insane endeavour. In this case, copying wasn't feasible, he had to understand, which meant starting from scratch.

Zelenka had insisted it was beyond Earth science. What did he know?

He and the team had finally succeeded in creating a universe of their own. Essentially being God to a new reality was probably the crowning achievement of his career, so far anyway, and, according to Shepherd, 'the most Rodney thing imaginable.' It had only lasted a few fractions of a second, but still. Each attempt, the universe would be a little bigger, or last a little longer, or both. The quest to produce one that gave back more power than had been required to create it was on.

Today's experiment was the latest attempt. From the control room of the lab, he looked out at the machinery beyond, which, to the untrained eye, looked like a large particle accelerator. At its centre, what he'd originally planned to call the McKay Quantum Core, before he pictured his other half's response, instead settling on the Zero Point Core. The dream of something ZPM sized was even further away, the ZPC was the size of a small house, though like its smaller Ancient relation, it was designed to contain the quantum energies created by the machinery around it. Along the walls were banks of naquadah fusion reactors, required to fire their latest universe into life. The 'Big Bang Generator,' as some of the team called it. A crude, though fairly accurate assessment, thought Rodney.

With a hum audible even through the solid trinium alloy wall and thick glass that separated them from the reactors, power levels began to rise, transferring into the generator, various particles, exotic forms of matter and dark energy were released from their electromagnetic holding pens and began being accelerated up to near light speed. Rodney's hand hovered over the big, red button on the console in front of him, as clichéd as that was, waiting for the energy levels to spike, he thumped his hand down, the button changing the directions of the various streams of particles, matter and energy out of their accelerator ring, and into the heart of the ZPC, slamming them together just shy of the speed of light, containing their reaction inside powerful fields of quantum gravity and dark matter. A miniature Big Bang exploded, universe number 43 had been created by the Project Elysium team.

They all now stared intently at the energy readings coming out of their latest creation, watching them steadily climb as the micro universe stabilised, green bars slowly climbing upward, towards the all-important red lines that indicated the amount of energy that had been used to give birth to it.

It felt like hours had passed, certainly for those stuck in a room with an impatient McKay seeking validation for his work, the steady climbed had slowed, then reduced to a crawl, but they were still climbing, then, finally, by just a few watts, they crossed the break-even mark.

"Suck on that Zelenka!" Shouted Rodney, much to the bemusement of his colleagues.

A statement that might need a little editing for the history books, pondered Rodney as he almost immediately reflected on his own 'eureka' moment…

And for Jennifer.