Explanations

After a short period of introductions and discussion, Thor followed the Thistledown Messenger over to the Siege Perilous, which turned out to be a little smaller than the Andromeda Ascendant but with the same general curvaceous lines characteristic of all High Guard ships. Thor transported SG-1 to the indicated coordinates on Siege Perilous and attended himself via projected hologram. The crew of Andromeda was also in attendance, having shuttled over in the Eureka Maru. One of the first problems to be addressed was the inability of SG-1 members (except for Daniel) to understand the Commonwealth language. After a period of about an hour to convince O'Neill that nanobots were really harmless, the members of SG-1 were all injected with language translation nanobots and they began their training period. And in the meantime, the discussion turned to Replicators and how to dispose of them.

"So what exactly is a Replicator?" asked Fleet Admiral Tanaka. "And how do we kill them?"

"A Replicator," said Thor (through Daniel's translation) "Is a mechanical being made up of metallic building blocks, much the same as an animal is composed of organic cells. Here is a representation of one of the building blocks."

A three-dimensional rotating building block appeared next to Thor's image.

"When several of these building blocks are in close proximity," continued Thor, "They can combine and build more blocks. This process of replication is what gave the Replicators their name."

The building block became smaller and several others were shown in the vicinity. They drew together and began moving as one unit, gathering materials, and forging an additional block.

"Once a sufficient number of blocks have merged," said Thor, "They form a single basic Replicator, like this."

The scene speeded up as hundreds of blocks were added and arranged, and finally a six-legged insectoid Replicator was shown, with moving legs and wings.

"From what we have seen of Replicator construction," continued Thor, "Once there are sufficient Replicators in place, they combine and form what we call a 'Queen' Replicator. The Queen is supplied with material, which she uses to construct Replicators. Once the Queen has constructed enough Replicators, they all combine into a 'Super Queen', which then begins to construct other Queens. These Queens spread out into new areas of the planet and begin constructing more Replicators, and the process continues. Recently the Replicators have learned to create very small building blocks the size of living cells that can be combined in the billions into what is visually indistinguishable from a living creature. You have seen two of those creatures on the planet below."

The scene showed a Samantha Carter clone standing next to an apparent human male.

"The purpose of a Replicator," explained Thor, "Is to make more Replicators. To that end, they will kill organic life forms and devastate entire planets. My race has been fighting them for hundreds of years. So far, in this universe, they have infested only this single planet below us. If we are to save your universe, we must exterminate them here before they spread elsewhere. So far, the only way we know to destroy Replicators is to burn them up in atmospheric reentry. They appear to be totally immune to energy weapons. Breaking them apart with projectile weapons is only a temporary measure, since the individual building blocks are able to recombine almost immediately."

"What if they couldn't recombine?" asked Harper.

"They can always recombine," answered Thor. "They have an attractant force between them that tends to draw the individual blocks together and re-form the Replicator."

"No, I don't mean that," responded Harper. "Don't the individual blocks have be in electrical contact with each other to form the Replicator?"

"Yes they do," said Thor. "But I do not understand your line of reasoning."

"The High Guard uses a liquid called Shorinol as a coolant in electrical transformers," said Harper. "It is an excellent electrical insulator. Suppose a Replicator was placed in a tank of Shorinol and hit with a projectile weapon. The individual building blocks wouldn't be able to recombine with each other because they couldn't make electrical contact."

"But we can't place each Replicator into a tank of Shorinol," responded Thor.

"Paintball," said O'Neill.

"Indeed," agreed Teal'c.

"What is 'paintball'?" asked Admiral Tanaka.

"Paintball," explained Carter, "Is a game played on Earth. It involves a gun fired with compressed air or carbon dioxide that shoots balls of paint surrounded by fragile shells. When the ball hits anything solid, the shell breaks open and the paint sprays out. If we could fill the shell with Shorinol instead of paint, then we could cover the Replicator with the insulating liquid and then blow it apart with projectiles. The pieces that were left wouldn't be able to recombine. The Replicator would be reduced to a pile of individual building blocks."

"Well that would be find for individual Replicators," answered Admiral Tanaka, "But by now we have a whole planet full of them down there. We don't have as many warriors as it would take to shoot every single Replicator twice."

"We will not have to," replied Thor. "The Samantha Carter is equipped with a device that should destroy all Replicators on the planet's surface. But it will not penetrate more than a meter or two below the surface of the planet. We can make several orbits and irradiate the surface of the planet, but we will have to send down teams to destroy the sub-surface colonies."

"That sounds good," said Admiral Tanaka, "But I won't send drop ships to the planet's surface. There's too much risk that one of those things might get on board and find its way back to other planets."

"There will be no need for your drop ships to land," said Thor. "I can deploy your troops to the planet's surface and retrieve them using the Asgard transportation device. They can be scanned on retrieval to ensure that no Replicator blocks are present."

"Very well," said Admiral Tanaka. "Assignments are as follows. Harper, construct Shorinol paintball guns. O'Neill, assemble a group of paintball warriors teamed with projectile weapon warriors to search underground, and lead the attack mission. Coleman, coordinate personnel to assemble a strike force. Thor, begin irradiation of the planet with your anti-Replicator weapon to ensure the safety of arriving warriors, and stand by with your transportation device."

"Admiral, a suggestion," offered Teal'c.

"Go ahead," said Tanaka.

"When designing the paintball guns, why not alternate one Shorinol paintball with one solid projectile?" said Teal'c. "That way each warrior would be able to kill a Replicator instead of waiting for another warrior to shoot the opposite ammunition."

"An excellent idea, Teal'c," said Tanaka. "Harper, you have your orders."

"No problem, Boss," replied Harper. "I mean, Admiral Boss. I'll send the weapon design to one of the Combat Support Ships and let them start building. It should take about a day or so before they make as many of these weapons as we need. And we should call this the Harper Gun."

The image of Thor touched something on his control panel and Harper vanished in a flash of light.