Mystery Solved
Disclaimer: The characters of Stargate Universe belong to MGM. The characters of the Four Orders (FO)** are entirely my own.
AU/SGU/FO**: A powerful being from another universe appears on the Destiny just as Eli's time had run out. Stranded on the ship he has to figure out how to go home and the best way is to help the crew of Destiny.
Season Four – 'Unravelling the past'
Premise:
The crew of Destiny woke up after entering stasis only to find two new passengers onboard. The powerful being Diablo and his sidekick Viz had repaired most of their ship in a display of power never before seen.
After some deliberations and revelations, the crew of Destiny chooses to keep them as their newest allies/crew members. But trouble knocked on their door when an Ancient seed ship nearly destroyed all of them.
Unified they set together on a journey of exploration of the deepest waters of their psyche and the darkest secrets of the Ancients. What they discover shakes them to the very core of their beliefs.
Previously:
When Chloe was brought in, Eli got think of his secret and what a secret that was. We get what happened when he endured the two weeks of solitude before Diablo found him dying on the ground before the stasis pods of the crew.
We understand that he met with Jesus who apparently was an Ancient and we learn of the reasons that led to the creation of the Bible and the entire belief system.
We learnt that they came to the ship where for the last two thousand years they defended the ship from alien incursions. And we also learn that Chloe's aliens were not indigenous to the galaxy where Destiny's crew first encountered them. Apparently they have tried getting onboard for a much longer time which explains why they had managed to gather so much knowledge about it.
We also understand that they have kidnapped one of the Ancients in order to turn him in what they had turned Chloe but failed as Ancient physiology is much more complex than that of humans.
Upon his time of death however another force had interfered – the heralded four and their leader from the guardian of Destiny (the second ship). That had forced the aliens to attack Destiny rather ferociously in response to the loss of most of their ships but had to retreat as they had undoubtedly sensed them near.
The then crew of Destiny were relieved to find that their friend had escaped the aliens even he had to ascend for that but the others were not so keen on doing it just yet so they remained onboard and continued with the mission.
However the resentment the ascended one felt towards his friends and subsequently towards his saviours grew exponentially until the day he strode ahead and found one of the seed ships. He then programmed it to attack his saviours and destroy them, and sent the ship backwards. He had calculated when the Guardian would come so he placed the ship at the poisonous planet.
He then returned to Destiny only to discover Eli and the now crew of Destiny. The hatred he felt towards the Heralded Four he turned on Eli but his former friends stood in his way. He vowed his vengeance upon the heralded four and their descendants, and disappeared.
He returned shortly and then expelled the two aliens into space (seemingly so) but in truth he had sent them home so they can regroup and attack Destiny again, and keep the now crew of Destiny occupied. Of course they would have to catch up with the ship but that shouldn't take them long. He hoped they would kill each other for good.
Things did not quite go his way as the others sent Eli to die thus creating a momentary moment of satisfaction before he realized they used the time to ascend and an eternal battle began.
Eli had completed his illumination only to realize that he can't share it with anyone as the divine one was not allowing him to. He understood though his reasons – it was not yet time for that.
And now:
Chapter 7
Ginn and Amanda waited patiently for the arrival of Viz. They had some news to share with him. Destiny did accept them as avatars and they had noticed the increased level of operations that the ship was now able to make without the need to communicate or trying to get inside the new arrivals' heads or the crew.
"Ladies," Viz appeared.
"We have spoken with Destiny." Amanda said. "It appears to be ok with us as avatars."
"So you have made your decision?"
"Yes," Ginn replied. She could not wait for the physical contact with Eli. "We accept being transferred to our new/old bodies."
"Excellent," Viz exclaimed. He was pleased they accepted but he had come to discuss another matter. "And the task I gave you?"
Amanda and Ginn looked at each other concerned. Destiny did share some things but they were not as expected.
"Yes, about that," Ginn said.
Viz tensed seeing their faces. "What?"
"Well," Amanda moved uncomfortably. "Destiny did indeed provide entertainment for some of the crew but not all."
"Why is that a bad thing?" Viz asked visibly relaxing.
"Some of the crew began with Destiny's simulation but then something took over."
"Define something?"
"Destiny described it as a powerful entity that has been trying for a long time to establish contact but given that Destiny is an AI it was not possible."
"How long?"
"Even before the time we came to the ship," Ginn replied. "Destiny seems to think it has been trying since it left the local clusters of galaxies around the Milky Way."
"That is a long time – what – nearly a million years?"
"Actually, I think it said it is the devil's years."
"The 'what' years?" Viz asked as he did not understand the reference.
"I believe Destiny said it has lasted so far 666 666 years."
"Oh," Viz understood now what she meant. The number of the beast is 666, the devil's years.
"I imagine it took the reference from my mind." Amanda shared.
"I see."
"Anyway," Ginn took the word to return to the topic at hand. "It has been trying for a long time. It even shared that for a time the Ancients were onboard too."
"Ancients? What Ancients?" Viz asked perplexed.
"The race of the builders of the ship," Ginn replied.
"Oh, they were onboard?"
"Yes,"
"When?"
"Apparently, the last time they were here was several hours before you arrived."
"Wait, what?" Viz exclaimed stunned. "They were onboard since the very beginning? Why hasn't this entity tried to establish contact with them?"
"No, they have not been here since the beginning." Amanda said. "According to Destiny they arrived about two thousand and change years ago. They have been manning the ship for that period – in and out of stasis."
"For two thousand years, that is impressive." Viz said. He was indeed impressed of their resourcefulness. "But that would also mean that they were onboard in stasis when you came to the ship. Why hasn't the ship revived them at that point?"
"Apparently, Destiny is to revive them only if we ever got in close proximity to them and we have never been to that side of the ship." Ginn replied.
"Or in eminent danger," Amanda added.
"So being shot with deadly pulsar radiation did not count as eminent danger?"
"From what, we understood – no." Ginn replied. "I think it meant that it must be boarded by aliens in order to revive them."
"Has that ever happened?"
"Yes about ten years ago," Amanda replied. "Chloe's aliens did."
"Wait a minute!" Viz said. "If I understood your friends correctly, you encountered those three galaxies away and a few years ago."
"Yeah, well," Ginn said. "No,"
"Then how long has Destiny been warding off these things?"
"For nearly one hundred years,"
"That is a long time to pursue a ship." Viz reasoned. "I imagine most of the time it was the Ancients that warded them off?"
"Yes, it was the Ancients most of the time and some of it the ship."
"And then they kidnapped one of the Ancients,"
"Why?"
"I imagine they wanted to study him." – Amanda said.
"Or," Ginn exclaimed. "Or to do to him what they did to Chloe."
Viz remained pensive. If they had succeeded then the ship would have been theirs. "Or they failed to do so because of their physiology..."
"But had no issues with ours," Amanda reasoned.
"So the dreams?"
"Yes," Amanda said. "Destiny said that Camille, Colonel Young, Sergeant Greer, Rush, Volker, Varo and Lt. Scott were under its wing until the entity took over. For some it was brief for others longer."
"What about Lt. Johansen and Mrs. Armstrong?"
"Destiny did not manage to reach them. The AI believes the entity took them over before it could."
"This is very disturbing." Viz said. He thought of the information so far and at some point remembered that he and Diablo did discover that the Ancients were onboard but they did not know for sure when. Still he told them of their discovery at the time.
"That explains the energy surge Destiny picked up right before you two arrived." Amanda said.
"And the sudden disappearance of all the Ancients as Destiny was no longer able to pick them up." Ginn added.
"Ok, so we have part of the puzzle." Viz reasoned. The two have uncovered much and it explained a few things however disturbing they were.
"Yes there was something else." Amanda interjected. "Destiny was attacked rather ferociously by the aliens when recharging. The only record it has of the Ancients of the time was they have come for blood because of the Destiny's guardian. We are not sure exactly what to make of that and neither is Destiny."
"What?" Viz exclaimed stunned. "And then what happened? How did it survive the attack?"
"According to it, the aliens gave up the moment Destiny emerged from the corona of the star. It has no explanation as to why they ran."
"This is most peculiar."
"We thought so too but we have no explanation for it either."
"I get it as this is a tactically unsound thing to do."
"Why?" Amanda asked.
"Well, while the ship is recharging its shields are at maximum strength therefore the enemy's fire would not have done anything. And then when it emerges from the power source that kept continuously charging them they run. That makes no sense. Were they trying to prove a point or ... I don't know? This is weird but thank you for sharing it."
"Perhaps Diablo could make more sense of it." Ginn suggested.
"Yes, perhaps, his mind does work in a weird way, sometimes." Viz agreed.
There was a moment of silence while Viz went through all the knowledge gained from this conversation. It confirmed some of their theories and added more questions to others.
"How is the transfer going to happen?" Ginn asked.
"Ah," Viz said. "We need to make some preparations for that. But once it is done, you will step through this door." And he showed them where. "And then you will wake up in your new bodies."
"Just like that?" Amanda asked. "Sounds simple enough."
"Transferring your consciousness into the bodies is the easy part."
"What's the difficult one?"
"Waking up," Viz smiled. "And more to the point, getting used to your new bodies, this will take time. Imagine yourselves being just born though not in baby body but in an adult one. However like a baby, you will need time to learn how to use your body. You will learn of movement, of thought creating this movement, of reaching out to all your senses that you have not used as you were in here.
And while in here you have access to all your senses, in your bodies it will be different. You will have to reach through the brain to create the necessary neuro impulses to push through the thought and the command to make a movement, to begin to think, to feel the need of replenishment, and to feel an actual emotion."
"Oh, I have not thought of that." Amanda said.
"I will ask both of you for patience as this will not come as fast as you would want. It would take some time to adjust and to remember how these things were done. Do not be scared if at first it doesn't work. Your bodies need time to accept the new energy that will flow through them – your souls."
"We will." Ginn said enthusiastically.
"Not so fast, young one. This will test your patience to the limits. You will get frustrated many times and most of these times you will fail."
"Oh, thank you for the reassurance. They should make you the pep talk guy." Ginn said.
"Nature can't be rushed, young Ginn." Viz said. "I want you to enter your bodies with the necessary realism. Giving or creating live is not a game. It is a pain that you will have to push through."
"I don't imagine we would be able to talk at first?" Amanda asked.
"No, you won't be able to but you would be speaking mostly with your eyes, then if everything goes well, you will be nodding and then slowly you will start to speak."
"So essentially we will be learning to live again?"
"Yes,"
"Oh boy,"
"I will leave you to prepare yourselves and then I will return when we are ready. And then together we will go through the process of living again."
"Thank you!"
Viz was about to leave when Ginn stopped him. "How will we then communicate with the ship?"
"Ah," Viz exclaimed. "That will become evident with the training."
"So do we have any cyber implants?"
"No,"
"Then how would you make that work?"
"The neural interface that Diablo built was for the ship. It essentially adds bio matter to the structure of the ship. So in a way the ship will become part organic part machine. And with the training you will link to the ship through the bio matter. You will not be the only ones learning things, the ship will be learning too."
"Wow that's clever."
"I am glad you approve." And then Viz disappeared leaving them to prepare for the new journey.
Speaking of Diablo, he was in his quarters sleeping but his pupils were moving very fast as though he was fully awake and doing something exhausting. And it was not far from the truth as his mind was racing with thoughts of past times.
Suddenly he woke up with flashing eyes. He has had a revelation. It was something that has been bothering him ever since it happened but as it happened somewhat fast and adrenaline was part of the equation he did not have the time to process it normally and then there were other things that he had to think of.
"What if we were not the target? What if we were just in the way?" Diablo was not asking anyone in particular other than himself as being the only one in the room. "Or worse, what if the radiation damaged the bloody ship and scrambled its sensors and it unleashed enough power to wipe out all heralded fours it picked up? And then started to recharge for the next batch? Now this makes more sense. It thought it had its target in sight."
The reason he was thinking of this was the nauseating and nagging thought that was something was off when it happened. The radiation to kill a time eternal was in excess hence the reason it affected him too. He thought that perhaps the time eternal was a strong one hence the need for more decisive strike but it did not explain the excess it produced.
That spoke of great hatred, personal hatred. There was also something else that bothered him and that was the wrong conclusions he made. While the ship behind may be more advanced than Destiny it was unlikely it possessed the sensor resolution necessary to pick up a tear of the fabric of space and calculate the precise timing for the seed ship to be back.
His reasoning was simple and was based on what he could see as technology on Destiny. While the Ancients were very advanced for their time they have not dealt with many spatial phenomena because of that were the case then the seed ship's AI would have resisted the command he placed to enter the particle fountain. Instead it accepted the change of course as though it was going for a walk in a cloud of dust.
So the seed ship did not come by the will of the ship behind and that left only very few possibilities. But the Ancients themselves while very smart could not have possibly known about the time eternals* and even if they did building the radiation bomb would have been beyond their skill set. That left the possibility of their ascended form. In that form their abilities would be boosted and learning of that would not be that difficult.
So he had to thank an Ascended Ancient for that horrid experience. The very thought of that angered him a lot. Do these idiot ancients understand anything of consequences of their actions? Apparently not.
He calmed down so he could think. So if there was an ascendant ancient who built this shit then his timing sucked. Or perhaps the radiation triggered prematurely the damn ship. But then why leave it on such a planet? Of course, he slapped himself. Destiny's sensors may not be able to pick it up or worse the Guardian's.
So if his reasoning was correct then the Guardian was the target and that ship carried a time eternal and the heralded four. He remembered the targeting ray and it was aiming for the bridge but that was the bridge of Destiny. But there were no guarantees that the Guardian's bridge was at the same location.
And then, of course, the question came to the heralded four. If they were on the ship and being human they would have to be in stasis or some other means to keep them alive otherwise pointing the gun at dead people is pointless. So the Ancient was certain they were alive and therefore created this monstrosity to get rid of them in the most antagonizing way one could think of as that radiation would not have killed them instantly.
His time of thinking was over. He needed to share this with the rest.
"Colonel Young," Diablo called in.
"Lord Diablo,"
'Well he's in a good mood,' Diablo noted to himself as he's never called him that before but then again there was a first time for everything. "Assemble your command stuff we need to talk."
"Sure,"
Then a thought occurred to Diablo and he added, "Scratch that, assemble everybody."
"Sure,"
"Excellent,"
Diablo stood up and made a few exercises for waking up, and then was out. He could barely hold himself. He needed to share this revelation so the crew can regain some of its lost confidence in the Ancients. One can never blame an entire race for the screw-ups of a single member of it.
He arrived first in the gate room and waited patiently for the others. Barely containing his enthusiasm he jumped up and down the railings where he stood as still as a pigeon on a wire. Thankfully the others soon arrived.
"Alright, we are all gathered." Everett announced. "What was important that you had to drag us out of bed?"
"Some of us, anyway," Dr. Rush remarked as he was on duty.
"Yes," Everett nodded.
"I am sure no one wants to be reminded of the horrid week we had with the seed ship but I will have to. I had a revelation about something that has been bugging me a lot and while it may appear insignificant it is an important distinction."
"What?"
"When the ship scanned Destiny it used as a reference the data it has on the Heralded Four and then it powered up..."
"We are aware of that part..." Camille interrupted.
"Yes but what we did not consider at the time was a simple distinction."
"Which is?"
"If the Ancients knew the Heralded Four as humans then why not use the term itself. When using names one tends to group them in the general group to which they belong and do not mark them as an individual group..."
"What?"
"I think I get what he says." Rush interjected. "If the sensors identified us as humans then that would be the normal classification for our species but instead it identified us as a group of people like a rock band..."
"Oh, I get it but what does it matter?"
"It does quite a lot actually, Mrs. Wray, as it makes an important distinction though also at the time the Heralds existed the Ancients may have known them only as the Heralded Four and may not have known that they were humans. But the distinction is important nevertheless as I believe the attack the ship did was not meant for us."
"WHAT?" Everyone exclaimed stunned.
"Yes, I believe it to be so as I have been wrong in my assumptions though not entirely. I assumed the ship behind us sent the transmission to the seed ship flying ahead of us to return and wait for us, and the use the weapon to kill the heralded four and the time eternal.
But then something occurred to me that no matter how advanced the ship behind may be it is not calibrated to pick up spatial anomalies as the Ancients have not encountered many so that part of their sensors is not an area they would have developed much. How I figure that? Simple, when I programmed the seed ship to alter its course for the particle fountain it accepted it as though I told it to go for a walk in a dust cloud. And if that were not the case then the ship would have at least indicated the danger of the current course.
Then we come to the problem with the blast area? I know you wonder what the hell he means. Well, the ray was aimed at a specific area of the ship. Don't get me wrong it would have affected the whole ship but the front blast was aimed at the bridge (though I can't be sure the Guardian's bridge is in the same place).
This speaks of a predetermined attack which implies prior knowledge to where your target would be and for the ship behind us to know that for sure is impossible as the variables for such a prediction are astronomically big. That also implies that the target is not moving and it is stationary and the only logic behind that would be stasis pods or current occupation of that area.
I know it is too much to presume now but it follows certain logic. Even when the Ancients knew and met the time eternal he would not have been that stupid to reveal to them or allow them to study him that much so they can discover what can kill him. No, there is only possibility that fits this possibility and that is an ascended Ancient. In that form, all lanes of knowledge are open and much easier to access.
And then we come back again to the Heralded Four. How would this entity be certain they are actually alive? He would be only if he had seen them as it is pointless to shoot something that is already dead. And I believe that the stasis they are in is something special so it can allow them to be alive after all this time.
And then there was the amount of radiation. The power needed to kill a time eternal even a powerful one is not nearly as much that ship unleashed hence it affected me too. That radiation was in excess. That speaks of great hatred, a personal hatred. That was an intentional attack."
Eli has been following Diablo's developing thought with interest. His reasoning has been frighteningly accurate. The only thing he did not know was why and when but that was probably a matter of time.
After a brief resume and questions from the crew, Diablo continued: "The only thing that evades me is one question."
"Which is?" Rush asked.
"The question is why."
"I think I can shed some light into that." Everyone's heads turned around and noticed Viz entering. "I have just spoken with the new avatars of the ship – Dr. Perry and Ginn."
"So they agreed?" Eli asked hopingly.
"Yes, Mr. Wallace, they agreed to occupy their new bodies." Viz replied.
"When will be able to speak with them?" Rush asked.
"Not for some time," Viz said. "It takes time to adjust to a new body but we are not there yet. We still have preparations to make before that happens."
"Can we return to the shedding of light?" Diablo reminded.
"Yes, please," Everett agreed.
"Ok, so the 'why' has to do with this - the ship was occupied by the Ancients!"
To be continued...
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Lordheaven
*for those wondering what the heck a time eternal is there will be an answer in Season 5
