For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1

Chapter 5: Broken Perspectives
(Sam's POV)

Okay, so I guess I'm back where I started, back to trying to make sense out of Teal'c's perceptions... and wondering how many more tries is it going to take for me to make some sort of headway here. Sure, I know this is all about finding where the end of the problem is and working my way back from there but unfortunately that end just seems to keep moving time and time again and that is making it almost impossible for me to hold on to it.

At first I thought the problem was going to be telling Teal'c what had actually happened on Simarka, but that turned out to be a non-issue because he already knew, in fact he surprised me by telling me that he had known all along. After that I figured the question was going to be how to help him move past his guilt, but instead he made me see that my own expectations were totally unreasonable and that I was asking him to do something I wasn't willing to do myself. Now I have to figure out a way to get him to come to terms with the fact that I am a warrior in spite of my gender... or at least something close to it. The problem is that in order to do that I would need a better working definition of just what it is that he considers a warrior in the first place and once again my ignorance about Chulak is coming back to haunt me.

For instance, one of the key things I am relying on here is that maybe, just maybe, being male is not a requirement. I know that --if what Teal'c has said here is anything to go by-- that is a big if but at the same time I know that is my best shot if I ever want him to accept me as an equal... or at least as a reliable sister in arms. Of course, the fact that I am guessing as to such a basic aspect also illustrates just how in the dark I really am about too many things here and that is not something I am particularly comfortable with.

I like having the facts at my fingertips and all this guesswork is driving me crazy... especially because one of the things I have to do to try to think like Teal'c, to figure out where he is coming from, is to separate myself from my own assumptions. That doesn't sound so bad but the truth is that it is turning out to be much harder than I could possibly have imagined because some of those assumptions are so basic to the way in which I perceive the world that, whenever I do so much as begin to question them, I find myself feeling more than a little lost.

To question those assumptions means to challenge my most basic perceptions of the world around me and I hate it, but at the same time there is no denying that getting Teal'c to change some of his perceptions is exactly what I'm trying to do here and it wouldn't be fair of me to demand something of him that I'm not willing to do myself... even if I don't particularly like it.

The thing is that this whole encounter has turned out to be nothing like I had been expecting and, in a really odd kind of way, it has also given me a brand new respect for my teammate. I mean, here I am, struggling to separate myself from my own beliefs for a few minutes when he has been functioning successfully in our world for more than eight months. Sure, he may seem stuffy at times and we may have a hard time understanding some things about him, but the bottom line is that he has been doing a lot better than I would have if our positions had been reversed.

If I had been expected to survive on Chulak, surrounded by as much open suspicion and hostility as Teal'c has encountered here on earth and totally isolated from anything that could possibly be described as a frame of reference, I seriously doubt I would have made it.

I guess I had never really given that much thought, maybe because I believed I had a 'more accurate' example based on the way in which Daniel managed to make himself at home on Abydos. The difference is that that is one instance in which Daniel found himself living not so much in an alien world but rather in a world he had been dreaming of all his life.

Daniel was originally brought into the SGC before there even was an SGC because he was an egyptologist... and Abydonian society was, in a way, Ancient Egypt in a bubble. Sure, I know that is a gross oversimplification of the facts but the bottom line is that the people on Abydos were the direct descendants of a civilization Daniel was intimately familiar with, and that civilization hadn't changed all that much since their ancestors had been taken from our world. Ra had seen to that so rather than being confronted with a truly alien world, what Daniel found on that planet was an environment that afforded him an opportunity to fulfill his every professional fantasy.

Teal'c, on the other hand, comes from Chulak and from there he found himself suddenly transported to our world with no warning whatsoever. In an odd kind of way I am almost tempted to say that he was transported to our 'more advanced' world, but the truth is that that assessment is probably far from accurate... or at best it is only partially accurate. In that regard I am also being forced to question my own definition of what 'advanced' means and that is not something I had ever thought I would have to do.

From what little we saw when we were there, I would say that --at least from our perspective-- life on Chulak can be described as a walking contradiction. On the one hand everyday life appears to be fairly simple, far simpler than life on earth --or at least in the United States-- but gate travel is seen as perfectly ordinary and Goa'uld technology is not only widely available but also accepted without even being questioned.

Sure, the Goa'uld themselves are perceived as gods and that can make their technology easier for people to accept because miracles don't require an explanation but the thing is that there are two very different realities that seem to exist side by side on that world... and even the 'miracle' explanation only works for so long.

The bottom line is that, as much as we don't want to admit it, what Teal'c knows about Goa'uld tech is more than enough to blow that cover out of the water.

In other words, there are many assumptions I have been making ever since I first met him that I am all of a sudden coming to the realization that are probably unfounded, assumptions that are based on my own prejudices and perceptions... and the bottom line is that I am having a hard time even trying to come to terms with the fact that my assumptions and perceptions are prejudiced in the first place.

I have been looking at the universe from a human perspective for well over thirty years and now I am suddenly having to come to terms with the fact that that human perspective is just one of countless possibilities. That is not an easy adjustment for me to make and it is one aspect in which I suspect Teal'c has an edge over me because he never thought that a Jaffa's perspective was the only possible one. Of course, while I am trying to rid myself of some thirty years worth of preconceived notions here, Teal'c is having to shed almost a century's worth of experience when it comes to seeing the world through a Jaffa's eyes, so I guess in a way that makes us even.