"Gentlemen, Mr President." An admiral greeted the room.

The leaders of the United States, military, political, intelligence, were gathered in one of the airier conference rooms available to the federal government, not far from the Capitol building, seated around a large rectangular table. The day was overcast and rainy and a few of the shoulders of gold-braided uniforms were damp with drizzle.

Eisenhower sat at the end of the table, a thousand thoughts swirling through the mind of the President.

Many officers and other excellent men would speak during meeting and Eisenhower was reminded of ancient councils and feudal courts in all the tales of puissant nobility. Each postured for the importance of their own statements, the primacy of their intelligence, yet as each one spoke the President thought it seemed to only contribute to a general confusion and paralysis of government. Even among the military it seemed to contribute more to fractious activity than cooperation.

"We have come to understand that our previous assessments of Soviet activity, capabilities and motivations are distinctly inaccurate." Announced one doleful spy, "Since 1948 we've been predicting a general collapse due to our assessments of Soviet economic activity yet it appears from the announcements of the Soviets as well as our own more current assessments of growth and resource extraction that the Soviets are far more advanced than we'd previously considered, and have benefited greatly from recent trade in Asia specifically. We're aware of extensive colonisation efforts and we must conclude that the Soviets simply have far more resources, especially in precious metals, than we've expected. The Soviets continue to maintain their deception efforts to obfuscate their economic status, particularly in the publication of intentionally conflicting reports of famines and general resources shortages which we can no longer blame on the standard Soviet behaviour of refusing to admit to weakness."

The reports went on, announcing general ignorance of Soviet foreign policy and what journalists and students of international politics had called 'The Human Face of Communism' in recent years. While Eisenhower's attention had been focused on fighting a dozen fires from the Middle East to South America the Soviets had suddenly become far friendlier, giving extensive aid, technology, and even military support. The Korean War had been lost, ignominiously lost, and not only by MacArthur due in large part to the Soviet direct interference. At the start Eisenhower remembered the briefings he'd been getting, though at the time he was posted in Europe, constant reports that no, in fact the Soviet tank divisions were in fact Korean ones, and would surely be destroyed once they faced American armour, that the Soviets had inferior technology such as radar and would never be able to sense various air attacks such as the disaster that had led to the Seoul Massacres. As it turned out later elements of several intelligence services had announced these issues but had been disregarded, such as a note discussing Soviet anti-ship missiles adapted from similar German technology. They'd lost a carrier and a battleship off Seoul because of these failures, with the greatest losses the US had seen Normandy in prisoners, dead and wounded.

"We are particularly concerned by the Soviet change in policy regarding what we might call 'ideological purity', and especially the resurrection of the Cominterm under Premier Zhukov. Ideologically opposed variants of Communism, especially in the Balkans had previously been reluctant to engage with the Soviet centre under Stalin but that had begun to change, and then swung dramatically toward integration under Zhukov. The geopolitical aim of the Soviet Union appears to no longer be the union of labour organisations in various states, with one speech commencement note during the Fifth International stating, quote, 'the conquest of power is not on the agenda as an immediate task'. We note even greater alarm at the rehabilitation of previous political hazardous ideas such as those of Trotsky, and the greater engagement conducted by the Soviets with the Atlee government of Great Britain, who we previously regarded as a damaged, but essentially reliable ally."

Zhukov! That had been a surprise. Eisenhower remembered the frantic briefings going around in the days after Stalin's death, so and so moving divisions to such and such a base, flights of politicians rushing like racehorses all rushing to solidify power. It hadn't been as bloody as they'd expected, or rather Zhukov's men had operated far more quietly than expected at least. Half the Politburo had been packed off to various meaningless posts and the upper ranks filled with military men. 'Bonapartism' had been thrown about on the airwaves but Zhukov's gentler policies, amnesties and promises of a new beginning and prestige as a military officer, as well as closeness to Stalin had secured his rule. Then came the Thaw as the international press had called it. Zhukov had glorified Stalin, but also admitted that, what was the phrase, that they'd become drunk on their own success, that actions were taken that wouldn't have been under conditions other than total war, and other such excuses. Eisenhower had respected the man, even considered them to have a reasonably close relationship as officers of formerly allied powers, yet Zhukov had cooled toward him.

"We are confident that Soviet science exceeds our own in several areas, in rocketry, computing, in guidance and other military electronic technologies, and in other more complex engineering issues. The general impetus of the Soviet research efforts appears to be a greater emphasis on quality rather than quantity, especially given the recent reorganisation of military districts and advances in nuclear technology in both the military and civilian sectors. However, we retain significant advantages in artillery, airpower and naval forces."

The Soviets had almost decommissioned their navy. All battleships had been broken up, with a couple laid up as museum ships. There was some new small cruiser design with keels laid down in several yards, apparently an attempt to fill the cruiser roll relatively cheaply and with the capacity for many upgrades. At least the navy were confident in their ability to beat the Soviets at sea, that had mollified them somewhat since the Rebellion of the Admirals and the general anger from that service at the cuts that had been forced on them since the general Soviet stand-down at sea.

The meeting went on and on with Eisenhower's headache growing. He knew he had another briefing later on Iran, or was it Iraq? He could hardly remember anymore.

Almost in a daze he left the building, the rain had started again and it pattered on the windows as they drove down Pennsylvania Avenue. More meetings passed, Eisenhower hardly paying attention, his mind on the threat.

He wasn't even sure it was a threat. Geopolitical of course, as every interaction between powers had proven since Thucydides, but the Soviets were pursuing a bizarre policy of aggressive friendliness, seemingly unafraid of war and constantly making their position clear through all channels, acquiring a reputation for keeping their word that was swaying many of the undecided countries toward their side.

"Mr President?" an advisor asked, shocking Eisenhower out of his trance.

He looked over wordlessly.

"Mr Green is waiting outside."

Green!

"How long's he been there?" Green was not a man to keep waiting, a mercurial genius he'd been responsible for half the technological developments in the last five years and had hauled his growing conglomerate up to the top of the American industrial index.

"Several hours' sir, but we've informed him several times that you're very busy today, the usual spiel. He's insisted on staying, meeting 'at your convenience' he says."

Keeping him waiting wasn't terrible, but it was hardly ideal, not when Green had brought him a whole state of votes almost on his own after he'd supported Eisenhower's campaign.

"Bring him in-" he paused, looking over his desk, "No wait, give me ten minutes and send in some coffee first."

The advisor disappeared and Eisenhower composed himself.

Eventually after a caffeine fortification Green was led in. A tall thin man, handsome but rather cold, almost like he didn't understand human interactions, but such was the case with such men apparently.

The greetings were warm enough; Eisenhower had never had an uninteresting meeting with the man after all.

"I must apologise for the delays Mr Green," Eisenhower said, "I'm afraid I've had several important meetings today and events have rather overtaken me."

"The crown weighs uneasy, is that the phrase?" replied Green with an unsettling smirk, "Please don't be concerned, I had some rather interesting reading to get though."

"Oh?"

"Yes I'm thinking of building the largest dam in the world."

It was typical of Green, and the man had shown the raw intellect necessary for such projects in the past. "I'm sure Nevada will be inconsolable!" replied Eisenhower, which got a genuine smile out of Green.

The pleasantries continued until Green came to his point, "I've requested this meeting to brief you on several technologies we're developing that may be of benefit to the United States."

Eisenhower nodded, not surprised at this remark, "I'll be happy to hear about them, and you must know that your country thanks you for the service you give, in your own way. I would note though that I've several Secretaries who I'm sure would be able to give you a more useful ear."

"I don't trust your government." Replied Green easily. "Or your officers."

"Oh?" Eisenhower remarked in turn.

"Mr President, my technology is mine, I've been burned before by the military when my equipment has made its way into my competitors' hands due to the connections your officials have in industry."

Indeed, thought Eisenhower, and Dulles crossed you to his cost, though he stayed silent. Green was best handled carefully.

"You have your second term coming up, and I'm happy to support you again," continued Green, "I fully expect you to win, and once you do you'll have no interests. I find it advantageous to operate 'on this side' as it were, and I hope that can continue, but I expect to be given due consideration under the law as any businessman would."

That was the trouble with Green, he was almost brutish in his success, largely uninterested in lobbying, his technology just too useful, his new radar systems having apparently leapt a generation by themselves.

"My concern is the welfare of this country and it citizens." Replied Eisenhower, somewhat uncomfortable with the conversation which was fringing on various anti-trust issues Green had been constrained by in his rise. "I'll use any weapon I can. They call you a captain of industry, well I was a general once, and captains are always needed."

"I'm glad you think so Mr President, and I look forward to working more closely with you."

Eisenhower wondered he was angling for, another raft of government contracts maybe? An entry into politics in general? "And I you Mr Green." He replied neutrally.

Green smiled that unsettling smile again, "Please Mr President," he said, "Call me Seth."

-x-

And there we'll leave it. Story complete with some exposition and an amusing cliffhanger.

As promised in the note after the last chapter I'll now go into some reflections on this story and my writing of it.

Firstly, I began this with a specific objective, to write a Soviet Stargate story. At the time of writing several years ago there were two stories featuring the a Soviet Stargate program, however I felt nether properly reflected the cultural differences such a program would have, and I set out to establish these and write a story about it. There are lots of 'alt stargate' stories, which might have French, British or other stargate programs, yet usually these file off the US stuff from canon and replace it with newly named bits, calling a base New France or a ship Royal Sovereign or similar. They don't go into the cultural differences and specifics of the program and therefore serve well as Stargate stories as a low sci-fi universe, but fail in writing a distinctive story and building the world of the alternate program.

I set out to write a Soviet Stargate Story, and write a story about a Soviet Stargate program. I would generally say I've been successful in this, though in some areas less successful than I'd like. I've intentionally limited myself, for example we've had a lot of scenes of people sitting about in conferences and me putting a lot of exposition into the story in this manner. I don't generally like writing like this, and I've often considered that this might have been better as a timeline, but I feel that would be somehow unsubtle and I like to think of myself as a 'better' writer than that, though perhaps a more snobbish one. To use an example, we don't see the first activation of the Stargate, we just hear about it with the first scene as a conference.

I've covered various issues I think would be important to the Soviets in their own program, for example, the specifics of geopolitical change caused by the Soviets, as well as the issues in development of other planets and interference in other societies. The most direct example of this would be the dome-city planet where they lead a revolution, whereas another example which I've presented less well would be the romans. While this is a story about communism, rather than a specifically communist story I've used various Marxist political theory while writing this story, such as Trotsky's Uneven and Combined Development theory which broadly states that different communities develop at different rates, and that the more backward the development the more violent the transition to a developed state, and as such I've portrayed societies as being highly disrupted by the Soviet interference, whereas in canon the societies remain largely static.

As mentioned I think I've been largely successful in writing possibly the best current example of a story about a Soviet Stargate program. However, I've noticed certain weaknesses. Firstly, a tension between the different ways of telling a story. I tend toward historical and fantasy stuff, character and plot driven, whereas this has been fairly wandering. I don't really want to write about Stargate stuff because in a lot of cases the standard 'go to planet, liberate, develop planet' would be quite boring. I've also been let down by my ignorance and unwillingness to research certain issues more. I could have written the last chapter out as a big arc going into how the Soviets have adapted alien tech, but I didn't, I referred to it indirectly because I don't want to get lost in a sea of tabs on various things like the order of battle in Korea and the careers of various officers. In short, SG1 found goauld stuff in Seoul (presumably from Lord Yu's rule of China), and called it in, the Soviets grabbed it and Durov used a Tel'tak's sensors to detect American activity in the Battle of Icheon, using the enhanced guided bombs from a few chapters ago to sink big US ships leading to a crushing victory over the US and the end of the Korean War with the US surrender. I could have written that in a timeline update but again I find it unsubtle.

Other failures have dogged this story. For example, I know Stargate stuff and some Marxist political theory but I don't really know about the Soviet experience in general. Some of this is minor like 'actually that's the wrong hat' or 'lasers hadn't been invented yet', but this all chips away at the verisimilitude of the story and annoys me as an author. Even the naming of characters causes controversy just as it would if I identified what I perceived as a silly name in a work I read. Sometimes I do this deliberately, for example, in the last chapter Durov introduced himself as 'Colonel Maskirovka', which means 'Colonel Masquerade' because Durov is there incognito and that's the sort of joke he'd play.

I also could have leant into the specifics of the Soviets more, for example a day in the life of the disrupted societies they influence, how Vulcan or Setesh are influencing their respective sides from the background, such as how the Soviets have gone heavy into gene modding because of Vulcan's interest in it and desire to uptech the Soviets. I've had to be fairly indirect in discussing this because again while I know about Stargate stuff enough to defend my writing decisions, I can't fault readers for saying 'no stalin wouldn't do that' because I don't really know enough about such things. I can say, such as in this chapter, that Zhukov has taken over, but I've had to be subtle about that, such as implying that he's doing it because he feels he has some sort of personal responsibility to destroy false gods because of his faith, or when I've implied that LokiClone!Durov has been dispatched to track down the missing Goauld stuff that got stolen from Germany.

Ultimately I'm pleased by what I've created here, and I'm happy that I've achieved my aim and developed as a writer. More stargate stories and even more soviet stargate stories have been produced since I've started writing and I'd like to take some of the credit for that. However, I also have to admit that as some have identified I've somewhat lost interest in the specific premise of the story. I'm still interested in exploring thing like how development can be disrupted, and I've got a couple of interesting ideas deconstructing some elements of the fantasy genre I'm considering to explore this interest. In any case, I'm glad people have enjoyed this story, and thanks for the support and comments on it.

As a last couple of points, let me know any final thoughts you might have, and I give general permission for others to adopt this story if they want, including characters, unfinished plots etc. Feel free to consult me on it if you want as I'm happy to be a sounding board and help other writers.