Disclosure
by Chaoseternus

The Truth Is Out At Last, Are You Ready For It?

Chapter 2

“"Greetings to all the people of the Earth, not just of the nations of the Alliance, because what I am saying should be heard by all. Indeed, we are overriding the normal channels in several areas just so that everyone can hear what I am about to say.

My name is General George Hammond, and for many years I was in charge of Project Bluebook, or as it is better known, Stargate Command..."

Hammond glanced momentarily at his notes, glad he had the heavy wood of the podium to rest them on, else he would have given away how much he was shaking. He was sure he eyes were giving away what he felt of the situation though, they thought that the General Populace was approaching readiness, that soon they would be ready to learn all the secrets of the universe but boy, had they been proven wrong.

On the other hand, they did have a lot of the press trying to destroy them, trying to paint everything in the worst possible light, and if they succeeded, earth would not last long, now without the few meagre defences the long years had enabled them to scrape together.

Damn it, he hated this, hated having to be the one to destroy everyone's dreams of a peaceful first contact, of a universe that was better then earth, that would show them the way to peace and unity. Well, unfortunately for them, the universe was even more screwed up then Earth is, even now.

And unfortunately for him, he had to explain that to everyone, that is everyone who could pick up the streaming webcast, the TV, even the radio was broadcasting his words whether the local broadcaster wanted it too or not.

“"I will begin with some background, and I must ask you to be patient as this may take some time. In 1928 on the Giza plateau, archaeologist Ernest Langford discovered an object buried under stone coverplates. The name of this object was translated as the Doorway to Heaven.

Its purpose unknown, it eventually ended up in America where it was stored until 1945 when an attempt is made to discover its true function. Eventually, they manage to activate the device which at then was of unknown construction, and Ernest Littleford passed through, behind him the device deactivated and believing Ernest lost, the project was closed down and hushed up.

In reality, he became the first American to set foot on a new world”"

Hammond grimaced, reaching for his glass of water, cursing his dry throat and the circumstances which brought this mess about. Cursing the revival of bad memories this tale he had to tell was bringing, of all the times he had thought his people lost. Of all the times they were lost, to the Goa'uld, angry natives and the thousands of other dangers that leeched his people from him, one by one.

“"Catherine Langford, the Daughter of Ernest Langford made several attempts to find funding for more research into the device but initially her attempts failed. Eventually however she succeeds and the device is moved to the lowest levels of Norad under Cheyenne Mountain.

It wasn't until Doctor Daniel Jackson, ostracized by his pears for his theories on the construction of the pyramids, joined the team in 1996 that the Doorway to Heaven, now more accurately translated as Stargate, was opened again”"

Hammond suppressed a slight smirk; somebody had managed to slip in a nice jab at Daniel's former comrades there, damn but he hoped they were catching this.

"“This time with one subtle difference, this time, thanks to Doctor Jackson we knew exactly how to ‘dial out' to another planet. A controlling device had been MvGuyvered by a team headed up by Colonel Samantha Carter years before but it was the final piece of the puzzle, provided by Doctor Jackson that allowed this device to finally work”"

Hammond swallowed, and nodding at Davis, waited for the first image of the Stargate the public would ever get to see to appear on the projector at his side. There was not a hope of turning back now, even if he could. He wanted to though, this entire situation had been a mess from day one.

“"The device you see before you is the Stargate, it creates a wormhole which can connect to any of the thousands of these devices across the Galaxy allowing near instantaneous travel across the length of the Galaxy”"

Hammond glanced up and almost smiled as he saw the mixture of awed, disbelieving and just plain ‘are you shitting me?' expressions on the reporters that filled the large auditorium to the brim. He had them, for the moment at least they would listen to every word he had to say, shocked out of any immediate response. Good, he didn't need interruptions, not for this.

“"Unfortunately, our first contact with a purely alien race was not peaceful”"

Technically true, sure they had contacted the Abydonians before Ra had appeared, but they weren't purely alien, they were human, Ra on the other hand was something else.

"“it was a representative of a race called the Goa'uld and they truly believe themselves to be Gods, that they are inherently superior to every other being in the universe and over the years they have shown that they cannot be trusted, they are utterly ruthless, to the point of killing the entire populations of inhabited worlds just because they wouldn't accept the Goa'ulds as Gods and we are at war with them”"

Hammond paused, and hoped, truly prayed to any true gods that may be out there that they Pysch boys had gotten their stuff right with this message.

“"There armies have always outnumbered us by several orders of magnitude and they are fanatical but so far we have prevailed through luck, ingenuity and through the blood of those who have fallen to keep Earth, all her peoples and all her ways of life safe. It has been close; I won't deny that, the asteroids which were destroyed several years ago for instance were a pair of Goa'uld warships sent by the System Lord Apothis to destroy us.

At that point we had no space going warships complete and thanks to the then Senator Kinsley, our only line of defence, Stargate Command, was in the process of being decommissioned.

The only reason Earth survived was because our flagship team, SG-1, consisting of the then Colonel Jack O'Neill, Captain Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson and Teal'c, an native of a world called Chulak who has proven his loyalty a thousand times over disobeyed direct orders to infiltrate the hostile warships where they assembled and destroy them from within”"

Hammond grimaced inwardly, whilst he might like remembering the look on Kinsleys face as he was forced to backpedal over the fate of Stargate Command, he didn't like remembering how close he had came not only to losing his flagship team, but to losing Earth as well.

“"Over the years, we have made several valuable allies, the best of these being the Asgard, a race perhaps better known as the Roswell Greys”"

Hammond paused, just a beat, and then relaxed. Good, it wasn't time for the somewhat odd and quixotic humour of his favourite alien. He had little doubt that if Thor had been in the area and that if he felt it would help, he would not have hesitated to show himself to the masses at such a cue. Not yet though, please, if you have to choose today to show up, don't do it yet!

"As well as the Rebel Jaffa and a now defunct organisation of freedom loving Goa'uld, the Tok'ra. Using seized technologies and the aid of our allies, we have made several space going warships with which to defend ourselves, unfortunately three capital ships and a number of smaller craft have been lost fighting for our freedoms.

In that time, we have successfully freed a number of worlds and even killed a significant proportion of the System Lords, the highest ‘rank' of Goa'uld. Unfortunately, it means the few that are left are the most dangerous ones.

I hand you over to Colonel Davis who will brief you in more details on the activities of Stargate Command, he will be followed by Commodore Williams of the Royal Space Service who will brief you on their formation, thank you”"

Hammond hid a smile at Davis's glare as he headed up to the podium, guess he had finally figured out who had the job of explaining ‘Wormhole Extreme' to the civilians.