A/N: My apologies for the time it's taken me to write this. It has been absolutely killing me. I've written and re-written it several times over the past couple of months and I'm still not particularly happy with it. In the end, I simply decided to scrap the discussion that is had here, and just summarise it. I could easily spend another couple of months on this, and still not get anywhere further, so I've decided to leave it at this for now and move on. If I get the opportunity and inclination, I might come back to this and modify it, but for now this chapter is finished with.
I have taken several comments from people regarding the analysis of the X-302 and X-303 from the previous chapter and worked a reply into this chapter to hopefully help explain it.
Thursday 6th February 2003
Prime Minister's Office, Number 10 Downing Street
"Minister, Admiral, the Prime Minister will see you now." Minister Hoon and Admiral Boyce stood up from the chairs they had been sitting on while waiting. Admiral Boyce straightened his uniform jacket, before following Minister Hoon into the PM's office. Waiting for them was not only the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, but also the remaining 3 members of the Great Offices: the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown; The Home Secretary David Blunkett; and the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The men all exchanged greetings while Geoff Hoon and Admiral Boyce sat down.
"So, gentlemen, we've all had a few days to review this information. I have also been speaking to Her Majesty, and discussing this with my counterpart in France. But before I get on that, what are your thoughts on the Stargate? What do you think we can do to get involved?"
Hearing the excitement in Tony Blair's voice, Geoff Hoon and Admiral Boyce exchanged a brief glance, before Geoff Hoon answered him.
"With all due respect Prime Minister, in terms of military involvement, unfortunately the answer has to be not much. At this point in time, the UK does not have the capacity to contribute in a significant way to the Stargate program, especially with regards to ship or fighter production and operation."
As Geoff Hoon finished, Admiral Boyce carried on "To put it bluntly Prime Minister, the UK cannot afford to even operate a single X-303, let alone build one. It is almost twice the size of an American Nimitz Class Supercarrier and while it has a far smaller crew, about half the size of the crew of a Type 42 Destroyer, the cost of maintaining the ship each year is likely to cost the equivalent of maintaining several Type 42 Destroyers alone, and that's not even factoring in supplies, upgrades or repairs as needed."
Tony Blair looked appalled at this response.
"Prime Minister, just look at the figures for them. Cost-wise, you're looking at at least £10 billion, just to build it, and that's a low estimate. There is no feasible way, with the UK's budget, to fund it. The X-302's, again cost wise you're looking at about £200 million per fighter, again low end."
At this, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, winced slightly. Even the modern Eurofighter, one of the single most expensive purchases in the past couple of years, was currently estimated to only be just over £100 million each. Undaunted, Admiral Boyce carried on.
"Unfortunately, as much as I would like to say otherwise, right now the UK is very much going to be a junior partner in this. Even if we could afford to produce a ship and squadron, we have no place available to build it or dry dock it. We'll be forced to rely on the US for that. Not to mention having to rely on them for the materials to build them in the first place. Remember the majority of them are constructed from Trinium and Naquadah, both of which can only be found off world, the access to which the US currently controls.
"In addition to this, the other issue is the amounts of Trinium and Naquadah available. We estimate that, if the current rate that Naquadah and Trinium is refined remains constant, and those resources are shared equally among all 5 nations, it will take almost 6 years before we each have enough stockpiled to complete an X-303, and that doesn't include any of the X-302's on board. With a squadron of X-302's each, we are looking at a completion time of around 7 years. Now, while the rate of mining and refining is likely to increase due to the increase in funding and manpower the SGC is likely going to receive from this disclosure, there is only so much resources that you can bring back through the Gate, while also keeping it in use for exploration and combat missions, as well as supplying any off world bases. As such, and providing the resources are shared equally between all 5 nations, we estimate it will be approximately 5-6 years before we have an X-303 and attached squadron of X-302's. And that is if the resources are divided equally. If they aren't, or the resources are needed to repair a damaged ship, then that timeline is extended even more."
Geoff Hoon then smoothly took over as Admiral Boyce finished his sentence. "We believe that our effort, instead of being on building ships and fighters to combat the Goa'uld, would be better spent focusing on developing the logistics we will need. In particular, we need scout and transport ships, to be able to explore systems and locate resources independently from the Gate system, as well as setting up off-world bases and mining operations. We can also be utilising the SGC's allies to provide intel to enable us to launch raids on Goa'uld mining and production facilities through the Stargate, both hurting their ability to produce new ships and weapons, and potentially also allow us to seize that equipment and resources for ourselves.
"Ironically, the best way we can assist the SGC in the short-term, is by providing personnel to form at least 1 SG-Team, in essence doing exactly what the SGC has been doing for the past few years."
After he said this, Jack Straw leaned forwards slightly. "Forgive me for interrupting Geoff, but surely the American's would have thought about that and attempted it if it was feasible. After all, they have been doing this for a number of years. Perhaps what you are suggesting simply isn't possible for some reason."
"It's possible Jack. The issue is we just don't know. There is no indication that the American's have tried this at any point."
As he finished and leaned back in his chair, David Blunkett spoke up from where he was sitting. "Actually, before we go any further, I would like a clarification on something. Admiral, my representative reported that you and your colleagues were very critical of both the X-302 and X-303 designs during the Defence Council Briefing yesterday. The technological developments that the SGC has been responsible for to allow the development of those craft is nothing short of incredible, especially for how short of a time they have had to do so. I doubt we could have developed anything near what they have, in twice the amount of time."
Admiral Boyce sighed slightly. He had already had to explain this several times to the various civilian members of the Defence Council over the past 24 hours. Hopefully this would then be the last time. "With respect Minister, our issues with the two craft in question was never about the technological development that went into designing and building them. Our concerns were purely focused on the military capability of the designs and their stated function. And unfortunately, they fall far short of those functions.
"Take the X-302 for example. It's stated purpose is to engage enemy fighters before they are able to reach Earth and destroy them. Currently, the main way that is planned to happen is by being deployed onboard the X-303, and engaging, certainly at the moment, Death Gliders launched from Goa'uld Ha'taks. The main issue is that in such a fight, they would be outnumbered 9-to-1 by the Death Gliders, and as they currently are only armed with 4 AMRAAM missiles, there is no way for them to destroy every enemy fighter. And, it would be a very rare pilot that is able to go up against 9-to-1 odds and survive. That means, there would still be a significant number of enemy fighters surviving any engagement, allowing them to reach Earth and attack. Meaning the X-302 would have failed in it's primary role.
"The X-303, again, while a fantastic piece of technology, in it's stated role of engaging and destroying enemy capital ships, especially Goa'uld Ha'tak's, it once again falls short militarily. The railguns are absolutely fine in the role of anti-air, engaging Death Gliders and Al'kesh, however there are far too few of them to provide adequate cover for it, and the majority of them are on the dorsal hull. There are 16 railguns, to cover what is essentially 400,000 square metres, or in other words, 25,000 square metres to defend per railgun. Compare that to, for example, an Invincible Class Carrier, which has 3 Phalanx CIWS and 2 20mm cannon for air defence, to cover approximately 7,500 square metres of hull area, or 1 weapon per 1500 metres. If the same ratio of weapon to hull area was employed on the X-303, we would be looking at approximately 250 railguns. Obviously that would be ridiculous, but quadrupling the number of railguns would make it far more suited for defending itself against small craft.
"The X-303's Nuclear missile battery on the other hand? Those weapons have been proven on several occasions to be next to worthless in engaging Goa'uld Ha'tak's. The majority of the energy released from the weapon is released into space, rather than into the target, and thus is wasted. Meaning that it can't punch through the shields and damage the hull. The US have supposedly got around this issue by developing some sort of Shield Modulator, to allow the missile to penetrate a shield without any issue and destroy the ship. However, every known attempt to utilise these shield modulators, going right back to Apophis's attack on Earth in 1998, have ended in failure.
"Those were our main concerns. Not the technological development needed to get to that point, but the ability of the craft to perform their stated mission objectives. However, another issue is the idea of doctrine. The US appear to be focusing on a naval warfare doctrine very similar to that developed during and after WW2, where the aircraft and missiles are the main striking weapons of a country, able to deploy at short notice, engage enemy ships and sink them, and have developed their weapons accordingly. However, to our thinking, the existence of shields renders the use of aircraft and missiles next to useless for engaging enemy capital ships and we need to look back to the naval doctrines of WW1 and just afterwards, when Battleships ruled the seas and the focus was on big guns and heavy armour."
As the conversation had been continuing, Jack Straw had been thinking about the X-302, and finally remembered an SGC mission report where the X-302 had been able to carry the Stargate out of the atmosphere in an attempt to disconnect it while under attack from Anubis. "I know that you've said they aren't as effective, militarily, as our current fighters, but would it be possible for us to purchase a couple of X-302's, and their armament?"
"How do you mean Jack?" enquired Tony Blair, looking rather confused at his slight tangent from the main conversation.
"Well, even discounting their military capabilities, they are a space-capable craft - thus allowing us to train pilots in Zero-G combat. Plus we would then have a test-bed to experiment with, seeing if we can add more missiles etc, which would then increase the capabilities significantly. And, even if we completely ignore that, they have an extremely large lift capacity, almost twice that of NASA's space shuttles, allowing the government to lift satellites into orbit at a fraction of the cost it currently does, or even possibly begin establishing an outpost or base elsewhere in the system."
Admiral Boyce frowned as he thought through this proposal. "I admit, our analysis only focused on the military potential of the craft, so this did slip by us, although it probably shouldn't have. It's not a bad idea to be fair. A physical testbed would give us more options in terms of answering some of our questions and concerns about the craft, and allow us to experiment with modifying it. The only major issue I see with this idea is that the Americans are going to want as many as possible to build up their squadrons. I can't see them parting with many very easily."
"I wouldn't think we would need more than two, one to study and potentially modify and the other as a training and heavy lift unit, with maybe a third later on at some point. Perhaps if we sweeten the pot slightly and offer that they would fall under US command should Earth be attacked? They might go for it then."
As he said this, many others in the room nodded in agreement, but Admiral Boyce shook his head. "Unfortunately, that isn't likely to be much use, and in fact could degrade the abilities of the squadron they joined a bit. Even though we do have very similar training and procedures between British forces and American forces, there are differences. And it is those differences that will cause the issues. While we do have troops on joint exercises, and shared deployments, it is rare that these troops are closely integrated into the same units. And even if they use American pilots, it is likely that the displays will not be identical to the US X-302's, and so cause confusion for the pilots. Probably better to not offer that option."
Gordon Brown then spoke up. "I think the first thing we need to work out is going to have to be the funding for this. Unless we are willing to go public, we are going to have a very limited budget available for this. I don't know if we could even fund a full squadron of X-302's, let alone a X-303. Focusing on developing logistics and small-scale operations would probably be best for now."
Here Jack Straw interjected. "Well, one way we could increase funding in some way is to bring other countries in on the program."
At this, he received confused looks from the remainder of the men in the room and he took a deep breath before continuing. "As it stands, our country cannot afford to fund any of these programs, and certainly can't afford to pull our weight in comparison to the US, Russia and China. However, if we bring in other allied countries, especially from the Commonwealth, a combined effort could then fund it. Plus, somewhere like Australia would then allow us to establish a research and construction base in isolation, something that is significantly harder here in the UK or even in our overseas territories."
The discussion carried on for several hours, but by the end of it, the group had agreed upon a number of recommendations to focus on, of varying priorities. These are:
Immediate (within 2 - 3 weeks)
Deployment of a SAS troop to the SGC to form a SG-Team.
Recruitment of various necessary personnel, both military and civilian (including but not limited to scientists, historians and geologists), to begin studying the various technologies discovered by the SGC and assist the SGC in the acquisition of additional Naquadah and Trinium.
Short-Term (within 2 - 3 months)
Disclosure of the Stargate program to Canada, Australia and New Zealand and an invitation for them to join with the UK as equal partners, in an attempt to counter the power held by the bigger countries.
Development of a research/construction base (possibly in Australia if willing to work with UK) to begin, to allow independent study of technology recovered by SGC
Review of treaties made by SGC to determine if they require modifications or renegotiating to ensure benefit to Earth as a whole, rather than simply SGC.
If possible acquire 2 X-302's from the US for training and space-lift purposes.
Mid-Term (6 months to a year)
SAS deployed as an SG-Team, working with SGC's allies, to secure at least 1 Goa'uld vessel, either Tel'tak or Al'kesh, preferably with a working cloaking device, and return it to Earth to allow a deconstruction and research of the technology on it. Plus the technology would potentially allow a jumpstart on the UK designing and beginning construction on their own spacecraft, possibly a scout or cargo ship of some kind.
Plans to begin for public disclosure. Although not planned to occur for a long time, there is a need to make plans in case of accidental disclosure, or attack on Earth that cannot be hidden.
Possible further disclosure to other Commonwealth Nations, in particular South Africa and India, if previous disclosure to Canada, Australia and New Zealand go well.
Examination of historical artefacts in various British Museums to determine if there are any Goa'uld items present, of special focus is the possibility of canopic jars, similar to those found containing Osiris and Isis, which could hold Goa'uld in stasis.
A review of various cults known to exist across the Commonwealth, to determine if any possibility of them being lead by other Goa'uld, similar to how Seth was able to control a cult through Nishta.
Long-Term (over a year)
Construction of a UK/Commonwealth ship, freeing UK/Commonwealth from reliance on SGC and resources through the Gate.
Establishment of an off-world colony, starting off as a military base, before expanding it into a self-sufficient base and then into a colony. Allowing the development of civilian technologies without significant impact on Earth until ready.
A/N: The next chapter should be relatively short as it will take the form of a Timeline post, and go up until the end of February, before the first mission for the SAS SG-Team
