A/N: I didn't realise this until I researched it, but, while the post is more commonly known in Britain as the Minister for Defence, or Defence Minister (as are most cabinet positions known as Minister for . . .), the actual title is Secretary of State for . . ., with the person holding that position being a Minister, the post is incorrectly referred to as Minister for . . .

27th January 2003

Prime Minister's Office, Number 10 Downing Street

Sir David Manning, the new ambassador to the United States felt nervous as he waited outside the Prime Minister's office for his scheduled appointment. Less than a week ago, he had been invited to a meeting at the Pentagon, barely a few days after taking up his post, and been informed of a programme the United States had been running for the past 6 years allowing them to travel to other worlds. And now here he was, facing the task of briefing not only the Prime Minister, but also the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence, on this programme and the undeclared war they were waging, on behalf of the entire world, against at least 1 alien race.

Suddenly, he was jolted out of his thoughts and worries of the upcoming meeting as the intercom on the desk of the Prime Minister's Private Secretary Jeremy Haywood, rang and he picked up the receiver.

"Yes Prime Minister? Very well, I'll send him in." Placing the receiver back down, he looked over at the ambassador "You may go in now Sir David."

With that, Sir David stood up and took a deep breath, picked up his briefcase, which he had checked several times in the past five minutes alone to ensure the documents he needed were still in there, walked over to the door, knocked briefly and then opened them and walked through.

Whatever happened next, he felt sure it would be an interesting meeting. Just a shame he couldn't have Supreme Commander Thor appear, even if just to prove he wasn't insane.

Walking through the door, Sir David was greeted by the the sight of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence, all sitting around the desk waiting for him. Irrationally, Sir David immediately felt as though he was back in school, and had been summoned to the Headmaster's office for some reason.

"Ah, Sir David. Take a seat." Greeted Tony Blair, as he indicated the chair opposite him. "You know John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister Geoff Hoon, Defence."

"Thank you Prime Minister" replied Sir David, seating down while acknowledging the other two gentlemen in the room with a quick nod to each.

"Now, you requested this meeting, and although I am surprised at the timing of it, coming less than a month after taking up the post of Ambassador, you indicated that you had been provided some highly classified information by the US government which would have a significant impact on Britain's security."

"Yes Prime Minister," he said as he opened his briefcase and removed several folders from within it. "Last Wednesday, I was invited, along with the French and Chinese Ambassador's and the Russian embassy's Military Attache, to the Pentagon. There we were briefed on a programme that the United States Airforce has been running for the past 6 years out of a military complex underneath NORAD, in Cheyenne Mountain."

As he said this, he leaned forwards and laid the folders he was holding on the desk in front of the Prime Minister.

"This programme Prime Minister, is called the Stargate programme, and in a nutshell, the US military have been sending teams, through an Alien device called a Stargate, to other worlds across the galaxy."

"I'm sorry," interrupted John Prescott, "Are you serious? Alien devices, other worlds? I don't doubt you believe what you've been shown, you wouldn't be risking your career for this otherwise, but are you sure it wasn't a hoax being perpetrated by the American's on us?"

"Not unless President Bush is also participating in the hoax, and the American's are pulling this hoax on not just us, but the entire UN Security Council Minister." Replied Sir David, looking a little disgruntled at the implication that he might have been fooled by a hoax, "In addition, they actually had one of their alien allies turn up at the meeting to help prove it was real."

Indicating the folders on the desk, Sir David leaned back in his chair slightly. "The US Air Force provided each of us at the meeting with these folders, in order to provide a full briefing to our respective governments. The first one contains a brief history of this Stargate network, which apparently consists of several thousand of these Stargate's spread across the galaxy, and some information on the race that built them, a race that apparently is over 50 million years old. The second give an overview of the US Stargate programme, their aims and the issues they've had over the years running this programme, as well as the technology they've developed from this programme. The other folders give information on a lot of the races they've encountered over the years, their ideology, friendly or hostile status towards Earth, their technology, pretty much everything that the US has learnt about them.

"The last folder," here he indicated one which was a different colour to the others, "is my initial thoughts and notes following the briefing the US gave us about this."

Looking a little white, Tony Blair took a deep breath before reaching forward to pick up the first folder. Meanwhile, Minister Geoff Hoon looked at Sir David with slightly narrowed eyes before asking, "If the US has been running this programme successfully for so long, why have they finally decided to share it with us? Why not continue running this programme on their own, without revealing it?"

This was the part that Sir David wasn't particularly looking forward to. "To put it simply Minister, they've stirred up a hornet's nest."

"How do you mean Sir David?" replied Tony Blair, looking rather confused, meanwhile, Minister Geoff Hoon groaned as he leaned forward, rubbing his hand on his forehead as if in pain.

"Don't tell us they pretty much declared war on another race for no real reason." Geoff Hoon bemoaned, "We've got enough issues with them pulling us into their planned Iraq invasion, we really don't need an extra-terrestrial war as well."

Sir David sighed, and pushed one of the thicker folders over towards the Minister, while Tony Blair disapprovingly looked at Geoff Hoon.

"Actually Minister, on this occasion, according to their reports, the US didn't start it. Well, not completely anyway."

With that admission, Tony Blair swung his head towards Sir David, with a slight look of shock on his face.

"The reports in these folders will be able to give you more information than I can right now Prime Minister, but in essence, they encountered a race known as the Goa'uld." Here he indicated the folder he had previously pushed towards the Defence Minister.

"In essence, the Goa'uld is a parasitical, snake-like creature that takes over human hosts, have a god-complex the size of a planet and keep the majority of the galaxy's population as their slaves, the greater part of which are humans, or human-descendant, in the case of the Jaffa, their soldier race.

"Their first trip through the gate, the US encountered the leader of the entire Goa'uld race, who either impersonated the Egyptian God Ra, or was the inspiration for Ra. He was apparently pretty annoyed that they not only trespassed on his planet but were also technologically advanced enough to be a threat to him, and planned to destroy Earth using a nuclear weapon the US team had brought with them that he had modified with an element called Naquadah.

"This element, I'm not sure on all the details of it, although they should be in these folders, is capable of exponentially increasing the power of an explosion, and would have caused the power of the device to be increased approximately a hundred-fold. That, plus the likelihood of the explosion being increased even further due to reacting with the Naquadah of the Stargate itself, would likely have utterly destroyed Cheyenne Mountain, and probably several of the other nearby mountains, devastated much of Central US and plunged the entire world into a nuclear winter. That is of course, if someone in the US government wasn't trigger happy, thought it was an attack by the Russian's and launched a nuclear strike on them in retaliation."

"Jesus Christ," uttered Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, while both Tony Blair's and Geoff Hoon's faces had gone almost entirely white in shock (and not a little fear).

"Put bluntly Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister, no matter who had encountered the Goa'uld, they would have considered this planet a threat purely due to our technology level and would have attempted to wipe us out. So did the American's start it? No. Did they cause it in some way, yes, but anyone would have."

Hearing that, Tony Blair took a couple of minutes to get his initial thoughts in order and suppress his natural instinct, which was to start panicking. Eventually he sighed and picked up the first report in front of him, which he noticed was Sir David's briefing report, before looking at the other men in the room.

"Right, we only have a couple more hours left before I have another meeting to go to, so I think it would be best if we start going through these reports and start getting some more information, which I think we can all agree we need."

John Prescott and Geoff Hoon both nodded, still looking slightly shellshocked at the information provided to them by Sir David, before reaching forward and picking up a folder each, John Prescott grasping the folder containing a history of the Stargate network while Geoff Hoon reached for the folder enclosing information on the Goa'uld and their capabilities.

"Sir David," continued Tony Blair, "if you wouldn't mind remaining here for the time being, we may have some questions which you may be able to answer."

"Certainly Prime Minister."

"Geoff, once we've finished here, I would like you to call a meeting of the Defence Council and brief them on this. We have to get the military's input before we can make any decisions. Likewise, John, I would like you to brief COBRA on this. Other than that, I am provisionally classifying this information as TOP SECRET. Other than the Defence Council and COBRA, not a word of this is to leak out until we can work out a plan of action for it, understood?"

"Yes Prime Minister" "Yes Sir" "Of course Tony" came the responses from the other three men in the room as they settled down to read through the information provided.