Application 1: Meresankh

A temple to Osiris and Isis, Egypt

"So, this is where the Stewart Expedition got those jars from?" Doctor Robert Rothman asked. While they had been underway to here, a second group had collected the Osiris' and Isis' jars, before anybody could accidentally release those two. As the Isis' jar was cracked, they believed she had also drowned in this reality.

"Yes." Daniel Jackson replied.

"That was a rhetorical question."

Jacob Carter looked around. The SGC had asked the Tok'ra for somebody who could help them to find any Goa'uld technology.

"I sense a lot of naquadah in this room." The Tok'ra said.

Loder pointed at the ceiling. "Possibly related to those circles up there?"

"Ring Transporters." Selmak said. "That means a control panel can't be far away."

"Who will check out to where the rings go?" Daniel Jackson wondered.

"The rings might be booby-trapped." Selmak answered. "We need a volunteer. I'll stay far away during testing to be sure."

"Oh, right. If we risk one of their agents, the Tok'ra will complain even more than usually." Doctor Rothman replied.

"I'll volunteer." Loder said.

Osiris' Tel'tak, a quarter hour later

Doctor Jackson looked around and saw gold-plated walls filled with hieroglyphs glorifying the martial prowess of Osiris and the genius of Isis. "Mmh, Goa'uld fashion has apparently not changed much in the last five millennia."

"So that there is what I told you about." Loder pointed to a Lapis Lazuli box, it was about the size of a coffin. A few blinking yellow lights were at the sides. "Those lights there were turned on as soon as I had returned power to the ship."

Selmak read the hieroglyphs on the device. "It apparently was the prototype of the stasis chamber invented by Isis. She had given it to Seth as birthday present."

"Isis worked on stasis technology?" Robert Rothman asked.

"She had invented it based on salvaged ancient technology." The Tok'ra replied. "Before that she had made the first two stasis jars and gave them to Seth as a way to show off her genius. Her brother later used them to lock up her and her husband."

"How interesting." Sanchez replied. "Is there anybody in the stasis chamber?"

"If the colours have the same meaning as those of contemporary stasis chambers, it is occupied by a living being who can be safely awoken." Jacob Carter said.

"Let's open it. Maybe whoever is in there could turn out to be important." Doctor Rothman suggested. What can go wrong? It is not as if somebody could have placed a monster in there or something.

The Tok'ra bowed and began pushing some buttons. "Ready your guns, I don't want to take any needless risks."

The lid slowly opened. Lots of smoke appeared through the opening. A figure could be seen behind the smoke, it appeared feminine and in excellent condition. As the smoke disappeared, they could properly see her blue face, black hair, and red and blue dress.

"Nephthys!" Selmak shouted. "But that can't be. She had died at the hands of Heru'ur two years ago. Her empire was destroyed in a three-front war after she had overextended herself by seizing too much of Ra's former domain."

The skin of the chamber's occupant began slowly regaining its beige complexion.

"Maybe she is the host of Isis?" Daniel Jackson wondered. "According to mythology Isis and Nephthys looked the same except for their head gear. Perhaps their hosts were twins?"

She started breathing.

"Ah, she awakes." Rothman noticed. "I suppose she will be elated after finding out her parasite has died."

She opened her eyes.

"I'll talk to her." Jacob Carter said.

The former host was sobbing in a corner of the Tel'tak. As she moved her arms the colours of her dress flowed, this dress was as that of Nephthys made of a metamaterial the visible colour of which depended on the angle you look at it.

"What happened? Why is she crying?" Loder wondered.

Daniel Jackson looked embarrassed. "Well, it turned out Isis had an unusual relationship with her host. Apparently Meresankh" He pointed at the girl "had once been one of her viziers and Isis had asked her whether she would volunteer to be her host. Now she is mourning 'her lady'."

"Wait, Isis was some sort of proto-Tok'ra?" Loder asked as Doctor Jackson approached Meresankh.

"Not really." Selmak replied. "She still was a false goddess, who tried to take over the Milky Way. Though I do admit she was less bad than the other Goa'uld, if only because she bothered with developing her and Osiris' domains and at least put in effort pretending to be a benevolent ruler."

"How interesting." Sanchez mentioned.

"Hmm, however maybe Meresankh had a positive influence on Isis." Jacob Carter speculated. "For example, in the century after Isis took her has host, her secret police became less brutal. Mostly using COINTELPRO style harassment and only using their previous Stasi-style repression as a last resort."

"Can we get anything of value out of her?" Robert Rothman asked.

"I hope so." Doctor Jackson turned his face to the group. "I have just spoken with her and it turns out Isis had hated Apophis, and now she is mad at Heru'ur for killing Nephthys. Apparently, her twin sister had volunteered to be Nephthys' host." Daniel wondered how much that explained about Nephthys.

"Oh, great. However, our current enemy is Sokar." Loder said.

Meresankh's eyes flared up when she heard Sokar's name. She immediately began yelling something in Ancient Egyptian.

"Sokar had killed Isis' uncle, aunt, and cousins, the Goa'uld of the long-forgotten Harappa Civilization, so he could seize their territory." Daniel Jackson explained. "She believes 'her Lady' would thus have no problem with her helping us in our struggle against Sokar."

"But what to do if Sokar is death?" Sanchez wondered.

"No problem." Selmak replied. "Isis' father, Geb, had been slain by the Goa'uld Ishtar; her mother, Nut, by Marduk; her grandfather, Shu, by Montu; her grandmother, Tefnut, by Nefertum."

Then Meresankh once again yelled something in Ancient Egyptian.

"Ah." Daniel Jackson shouted. "Apparently the System Lord Neith had bullied Geb and Nut in school, thus she has no problem with helping us against her either."

"But Neith is already death for two millennia." Jacob Carter replied.

"Yes, but she does not need to know that." Loder replied.

Doctor Jackson shook his head. "No, we are not going to lie against her. Should she find out she is not going to trust us again."

"Gee, poorly enough Isis is death. She apparently hated all the other Goa'uld enough to help us in our fight against them." Doctor Rothman bemoaned.

"We could try cloning her." Sanchez suggested. "Don't Goa'uld have genetic memory?"

"No!" Selmak shouted. "Cloning a Goa'uld? Have you become mad?"

"We can't do that." Doctor Jackson agreed. "Poorly enough that means Meresankh's ability will be a bit limited. She had often been a great help to Isis in her research, but she is used to have constant access to the knowledge from Isis' genetic memory."

About a month later

Sha're opened her eyes.

She did not recognize the room she was in. Perfectly straight corners were everywhere, everything was well lit however she saw not even a single window or fire.

She lied on a bed, soft enough for a king.

Her body felt strange, as if her torso were replaced by a new one.

How did I get here? Sha're wondered.

The last thing she remembered was that the demon in her had tried to kill her husband, but she took a staff blast to the chest before that vile thing could finish him off.

Is this heaven?

Then a door opened. A woman she did not recognize entered, followed by Daniel and Kasuf. She was relieved to see them. Teal'c and Jack O'Neill were just behind them.

But then she began to worry. "Are we dead?" She asked her husband.

"No." He replied with the thick accent he always had when speaking Abydonian. "However, it was very close. That demon had nearly succeeded in killing me, and I had nearly lost you."

Sha're searched for wounds on her body with her hands, she found none.

"I thought I was hit by a staff blast."

"Yes." Teal'c replied. "I was forced to fire upon you to save Daniel's life."

"Thank you. I would not want that demon to kill my husband." She replied. "But I wonder, how am I still alive? I know of nobody who survived a hit in the chest from a staff blast."

Her father, Kasuf, looked uneasy. "You had been risen again."

"What?" The demon inside her had sometimes thought about a device capable of reviving the death, she thought they did not have one here.

"Osiris' sarcophagus." Daniel said as he began to explain what had happened.

This took some minutes.

"… you had nearly been too much destroyed for the device to work." The woman who Sha're now knew as Janet ended Daniel's explanation.

"But what has happened to the demon?" Sha're asked.

"The Tok'ra had taken her out of you." Her husband had answered.

Sha're smiled out of relief.

"Now I'll start preparing my resignation." Daniel said.

"What?!" Jack shouted.

"I joined this program so that I could find my wife. I have found her. End of story." Daniel said.

"But what about the fight against the Goa'uld?" Jack asked. "What about all the new cultures you get to explore, the living history? It's the kind of stuff you can't walk away from."

"Up until now, every time I set foot through that 'Gate I was thinking about my wife. Maybe I'll see her this time, maybe this is the one… Now when I go through it will just be someplace far away from my wife who I haven't seen in years."

O'Neill grew fed up with this "The SGC may be the single most important human endeavour for the future of mankind. Not bad, huh? You said that."

"The SGC will go on without me."

Kasuf looked at Daniel. "Daniel, it gives the people of Abydos great security, knowing you are out there among the gods, protecting us."

Daniel now looked unsure.

Then Sha're remembered. "You need to find the boy. Amonet only took the Abydonians as a show, so that Heru-Ur would not know her true goal."

"What?"

After a long conversation, Daniel begrudgingly decided to wait with resigning till the Harcesis had been found.

Doctor Jackson would end up staying in the SGC long after that.

General Hammond's desk, Cheyenne Mountain

General Hammond was sitting on his stool, opposite to him stood Colonel Maybourne.

On the desk lied a black suitcase, sealed with an overabundance of locks.

"So, Osiris is in there?" Harold Maybourne asked.

"Yes, our scans suggested the symbiont in that jar is still alive." General Hammond replied. "After we had verified Isis was dead, we gave her jar to Meresankh. She wanted to give her lady a proper Ancient Egyptian burial." Meresankh would have preferred to resurrect Isis with a sarcophagus, but the symbiont had been too long gone for that.

George Hammond actually felt sorry for Osiris, he had lost both his wife and favourite sister. Who knew that the pharaohs got their custom of marrying their sisters from evil space aliens?

"Damn." Maybourne cursed. "It would have been much better if we had two Goa'ulds. Then we could interrogate them separately and then compare their stories to filter out any lies."

Then Harold had an idea. "Wait, Osiris does not yet know his sister is dead. Maybe we could fool him into thinking we are also interrogating Isis."

"We can't interrogate him, if he hasn't a host." The general replied. "And I don't think anybody would volunteer."

"Maybe we could use a criminal on the death row." The Colonel suggested. "I can't come upon anybody more deserving."

"I believe that would be illegal." Hammond replied.

"And? We committed much greater crimes for less honourable causes during the Cold War."

"I suggested the president to notify the Tok'ra. Maybe they can get something out of him."

"The Tok'ra? Have they yet repaid us for our earlier work? How many times have they shared intel with us when it didn't benefit them?"

Then somebody knocked on the door.

"You can enter." George Hammond shouted. "Our conversation had just ended."

Samantha Carter entered; she was carrying a recorder. "Sir, we have problem with the X-301's software, some original code from Apophis. It was found by Meresankh, she was the only one who understood it sufficiently."

"So, what did she find?" The general asked.

"This sound file; however, we don't yet know what is supposed to trigger it."

She pushed a button on the recorder.

The booming sound of Apophis yelled at them in the Goa'uld language. "Shol'vah! To all those who would turn against their god, know this. For your insolence you will die in the cold of space. What is rightfully mine will now return to me!"

"Heavens!" Maybourne shouted. "I hope you can fix this."

"Even if we can find the trigger and the code of the actual recall device, there might still be another trap hidden in it. We have no choice but to build our own flight software from the ground up." An expression of despair appeared on Carter's face. It would cost a lot of time, manpower, and money, and still end up inferior to Goa'uld flight software.

"I have the fullest faith in your abilities." George Hammond replied. "It is something which in the long term would have needed to happen anyway. We can't keep using software we don't understand forever."

"Maybe you can ask the Tok'ra for help." Maybourne suggested. "Demand it as a condition for handing over Osiris to them. Otherwise, those condescending ungratefuls would not have repaid us anyway."

"No." Hammond shut him down. "We threat our allies better than that. The Tok'ra have at many occasions-"

Then the general frowned. "Wait, involving the Tok'ra in the X-301 project might actually be a good idea. I had not expected to find anything we would agree on."

"Well, good to know you are at least sometimes sensible." Maybourne replied.

He stood up. "I still have other work to do, goodbye sir, goodbye ma'am."

After Maybourne had left the room, the general turned his face to Carter. "That reminds me, something new came up where I wanted to have your advice on."

"I'll do my best to be helpful, sir. What is it?"

"A budgetary matter, I have problems with the allocation of money, personnel and resources."

Distraught showed up on Carter's face. "What?! Did Kinsey manage to get our funding cut?"

"No, it's the opposite. The Stargate program's budget and assigned personnel have been increased so much I don't know what to spend our new resources on."

Major Carter was flabbergasted.

"The president had agreed with you that the purely civilian applications of Nephthys' technology should be brought to the market. As the world is not yet ready for the revelation of the existence of an extra-terrestrial threat, he needed some fake research programs to hide their origin. However, it would be suspicious if breakthroughs of the size and difficulty of fusion energy and room temperature superconductors would be made by miniscule teams of scientists having scraps for budget." General Hammond explained.

"So, the money and personnel of those fake programs goes to the SGC?"

"Yes, our budget has been doubled and the number of civilian scientists working for the SGC has been tripled, and more is still to come. There are some obvious budgetary holes which could be filled, but after that we have still leftover money and personnel."

"Osiris' Tel'tak." Carter mentioned.

"That five-thousand-year-old craft we dug up in Egypt?"

"It appears to be still functional." Carter replied. "I believe the knowledge gained from the study of obsolete Goa'uld technology would help us in understanding modern Goa'uld technology, another thing Meresankh could be a great help in."

"Perhaps." Hammond answered. "We have to give our surplus eggheads something to do, certainly something to keep in mind if we don't find anything with more direct gains."

Then the conversation shifted into the discussion of each other's family and after a few minutes Carter left the room and returned to her work.