Chapter 1 The Plan
On a cool humid May day, 2012, in Switzerland, the heads of states or goverments that were members of the IOA had secretly assembled in a large ski resort. On the table they were discussing the Stargate and the various diplomatic, military and scientific operations related to the progam, such as the Atlantis and Destiny expiditions. The official excuse was a discussion of a trade deal betweem the countries. One thing that was unusual and what various conspiracy websites later on picked up on was the chair of the discussion was a private citizen, Carl Ström, head of the Långfärd (or Langford) foundation and the President and CEO of the swedish defence contractor Ideon Research and Development, and unofficially he was also the head of the IOA.
"With the relative peace we currently have, outside of the Lucian Alliance, it is time we start discussing the how and when we are going to tell the public and the world at large, about our various off-world activities." opened IOA head. "With our cold war with the Wraith are starting to end in victory for us, we need to figure the best way to do it and how we are going to cover it up until while we finishing intergrating the various Asgard, Goa'Uld and reversed engineerd Ancient technologies into our societies and our off-world protectorates."
"How about the Wraith warbands that still holding on to hostilities?" asked the the French President. "They are still searching for a way to the Milky Way, or the various pirates coming out of the Old Kingdom region of the defunct Goa'Uld empire."
"They are mostly trying to raid various settlements in the Celtic Reach or Avalon Dominion." countered the Mexican President. "Mercinaries on our payroll and drone ships from the Asgard Protected Treaty Reach are keeping them in check. What I do worries me are the reports just (galactic-) north of them. This Himmel empire seems to be an Axis colony of some sort. That could explain some ot the finds near the Percival gate Dr. Jackson found in Bavaria.
"And the Wraith warbands are mostly non-entity at the moment. No other Wraith hive are talking or supporting them, nor do any Wraith followers."
"But that is still some 14 hive ships." defended the French President. "And how about the our own backyard here on Earth, such as the Middle-East, or this Farking empire out side of our protectorates?"
"In regards to our backyard problems, that we can fix, with we supplement the official treaty with a military alliance with a common command". offered the Russian President. "And the Farking Empire is mostly a loose confedarion of systems trying to protect themselves from pirates and rouge Jaffa warbands, nothing serious and something we could support in excange of resources."
"We have another reason to reveal the Stargate." said the Indian President. "It could solve the overpopulation problems facing India and China."
She took a small sip of tea and continued. "We could locate a planet to colonize and settle. And the various technologies can reverse the climate change.
"My wonderful husband is a medical doctor in Mumbai, and he have taken a look into the Asgard medical databases. They could save billons currently infected by various fatal diseases and syndromes."
"You are right madam President, but the people need to be eased into what we can offer them." said the sole alien on the meeting. Officially she was Charlotte Mayfield, CEO of the american defence contractor Farrow-Marshall Aeronautics. Unofficially she was Goa'Uld Athena, who like many other of her species took refuge on Earth with Ba'al, though after his capture they was offered a full amnesty from the Tok'Ra, Jaffa goverment, and the Tau'Ri if they came out and worked with the Taur'Ri. "This scenario have been discussed by both the permament members of the UN Security Council and the IOA. If we expose it now, it will be pandamonium. Both my host and I are in aggreement of this."
"While by the looks of it we are between a rock and a hard place, but maybe I can offer an soloution?" spoke the Brittish Prime Minister. "Before we started with this meeting, I talked with the Chinese Premier."
"We agreed that we create a plan of say eight years, where we lay down the groundwork for revealing the 'Gate and the off-world technologies."
"What is the outline?" asked the President of Zimbabwe.
"We build up our combined space forces and put them in a common command structure, quietly intreducing off-world technologies, and create a form of united goverment or organization with jursdiction over it. With combined forces from all nations here with a common goal we could solve alot of the military problems and the rest with various companies as proxies to intruduce the technologies."
"Eight years, could be doable." said the Finnish President. "Every terroist would shit themselves at our combined might."
"With the technologis from off-world, would provide cheap and clean energy and off-world resources could solve alot of problems."
"This is doable." said the Swedish Prime Minister. "But a treaty with soverignity should solve most problems, and the rest can be solve by diplomats later on when they arrive,"
It took a week to draft a treaty, and another weel to ratify (though unofficially, it was already ratified before the meeting in Switzerland). Officially it was a trade agreement with a supplement that said that all militaries of the signatories would work together to find and bring terroists to justice. Unofficially it was turning the IOA into a goverment, and put the militaries of signatories in a common command.
SGC General Order 2012:406L
The Stargate and related operations (hencefort collectilly known as the Stargate) cannot be hidden from the Nations of the Earth or their people. For the revalation of the Stargate, the IOA shall become the official goverment for Earth and our off-world protectorates. This done through the following points:
1) To prepare the public for the Stargate, various off-world technologoes will be introduced by the usual proxies in an increasing rate then previously.
2) IOA signatory members' militaries will focused to combat global terrorism and other threats to the general public of Earth.
3) The space going forces within IOA, will be used to find a suitable planet to colonize. This planet will be used for a massive military buildup program. This planet must fullfill the following criteria:
3.1) Must be unclaimed by any species or culture, spacefaring or not.
3.2) This planet must have the resources needed for building starships and other vehicles, and any other military hardware. Or at least within the star system the planet is curremtly in.
3.3) This planet will replace the Siberian and other shipyards as the primary shipyard for our spacegoing forces. A testing area for weapons will be created aswell.
3.4) The planet chosen will also be our main off-world command center, and where we will coordinate our mercinary and local forces in the protecorates.
4) A common command will be formed, reducing the Homeworld Command's work. The lead on this point have already suggested and approved, amd this will be Vice-Admiral Carl Hamilton rt. from Sweden.
5) IOA will be transformed into a federal goverment, and any expansion, both off-world, and on Earth will be allowed and expected. This will be done by the Goa'Uld Athena, with advicement by leading individuals from the protectorates.
5.1) Criteria for Earth nations will be created.
5.2) Criteria of off-world cultures to join will be created, these criteria will be for both IOA goverment and any off-world cultures willing to join.
5.3) As per Athena's suggestion beforehand, this new goverment and all off-world and spaceborne forces of Earth will identify as Tau'Ri.
6) As prevously ordered, at no point will the location of Earth will be disclosed without prior approval.
7) In addition lesser planets will be located, mapped and surveyed for future settlement of colonies from Earth or its protectorates and of potential intruduction of endangered animal species from said worlds.
Signed
General Jonathan O'Neill
Commander Homeworld Command
As soon as the order was issued to all off-world and spaceborne forces available to the now known as Tar'Ri, the various forces from multiple countries were now fully within a common command carried out ther orders.
Late October, a green electrical looking discharge ripped space open for a brief moment and a gun metal grey ship deaccelerated out of it. As the ship's sublight engienes powered up, a female lt. Colonel in Peoples Liberation Army Navy uniform entered the ships bridge.
"Command on deck!" yelled an officer in full dress uniform, and the chinese sailors briefly stood up and saluted their captain.
"At ease." orderd lt. Colonel Sung Daiyu of Sun Tzu. The ship had been badly damaged in the Battle of the Super-Hive, and the previous captian lt. Colonel Yin killedin said battle. Afterwards the ship was repaired, and her crew replenished. The young lt. Colonel was chosen to replace her old mentor due to her great grandfather had beem a close lieutenant to Mao Tze Tumg himself and her father had retired as an General in the PLA and her own high marks and years of loyalty to her nation, this was despite of rumors that she had followed her Uyghur mother's ancestral Islamic fatih or the rumors that she was Homosexual. After her appointment however and the subsequemt order from lt. General O'Neill, she had confirm both rumors to her former seniors in the PLAN, but she also, with respect, declined to name her lover, since she had a high rank in the PLA.
"Report." inquired Sung, as she sad dwon on the central command chair.
"We have entered a singke star systen with seven planets, two are within th Goldilocks zone, rest are in the outer system, however we have multiple asteroid belts with high density both in the inner and outer system" reported her XO.
"The star is a G1 main-sequence, followed by one asteroid belt, by the looks of it an rocky inner planet that has beem destroyed by the gravitational resonance betweem its parent and neighbor.
"The first planet is a Class II gasgiant, though it has bands of Alkali metal clouds. It has a thin ring and 55 moons of various configuration, two of them however seems to be habitable though and its worth to take a look at.
"Second planet is Earth like by the initial scan. About two percernt hevier than Earth but its four percent smaller, two moons, nothing extraordinary about them.
"The next item is another astroid belt, like the first one, it seems to be another wrecked planet of Earth's size and mass. Following Three gasgiants, the first two are copies of the system's first planet with 42 and 71 moons respectivly the outer of the two have a massive visable ringsystem about twice the size of Saturn's. The third gasgiant is a Class V with 39 moons and a ringsystem same size as Saturn's. Rest are rocky planets, the inner one is mostl likely a migrant, similar to Mars in structure though this one is geological activy. The final planet seems to be a captured rouge, and by the looks of it, it had one point been capable of supporting life similar to ours. None of these planets have satelites.
"I see, we start a survey of the second planet and we follow up on those two moons of the first planet." orderedd Sung. "Status of the fleet?"
"As part of our mission, the Canadian ship St. Francis, is at Canopus, the german ship Drache is at Iota Boötis, and Japanese ship Akizuki is at P2E-854." said the XO. Sung and her fellow capatains of the mussion had a bet where wich the losers buy the winning captain's drink of choice.
"The four American ships plus the two Brittish have launch an operation in the Pegasus against Wraith holdouts. The French ship is visisting a Farking empire's capital world. the two Russian are keeping a picket on Sol, and the Swedish is on its shakedown in Hebridan."
"That account of all our ships then." said Sung. "Good, send our survey to the planet, and send 4 fighters to do a quick survey of the two moons. and 2 to the outermost planet."
"Aye, Aye, Captain."
Twelve hours later, the lt. Colonel Sung sat in her quarters in front of her stood her XO, Major Kim, an veteran of the SGC joining up during the Ori campaign and had over 300 gate travels on his belt before being assaigned to the Sun Tzu.
"The second planet have both Naquadah, Titanium and Trinium in sufficient amount the crust." said the XI. "In fact, it has around fifty percent more than our minumun requirement, so its suitable for our needs. It seems to have been Goa'Uld settlement in the planet, but C14 dating says it has been two-thousand years since it was occupied."
"Cause?" asked Sung.
"A massive neuclear explosion in the southern hemisphere, unknown origin."
"Ok, continue."
"The planet has no Stargate, and has two major landmasses and one large covering most of the eastern hemisphere and a long strip of land to the west connecting both poles with it, but its half the size as the first one. Three small moons with total mass equal to one-and a half of ours. The two surveyed moons are similar to the second planet but eighty and 95 percent the size of our target planet respectivly. The inner one however have signs of early civilation. Not Goa'Uld or Earth descended."
"How early?"
"Late stone age, with some copper tools. But its within the margin of acceptance.
"Ok", and the outer world?"
"Dead, the pilots landed near a radiobeacon. It seems that the planet was an Earth descended slave world named Elysium that mananged to steal an hyperdrive from a Goa'Uld Super-Hatak belonging to Chronus, and tried to use it to move the entire planet into the second planet's L2, but lacked the power to fuel the entire voyage. They got out a bit early, the beacon also said that two million still sleep in stasis and that any Goa'Uld are free to take them as slaves."
"Send the information to the IOA, see if we can wake them up and give them part of planet." ordered Sung.
"Aye Aye lt. Colonel, it will be done imedietly." responded the XO.
Two days later four ships arrived to the system. Three fellows of the survey mission and the new Swedish ship GARS. The Drache and GARS was given the order to evacuate Elysium and settle them on the planet. The three others was given the order to send down ground teams to prepare colonizers from both Earth and Elysium.
"Turns out the pilots translation software was off when they translated the number of Elysians in stais." said the Swedish Captain Iman Mohammed. "By a factor of one thousand."
"Two billion!?" exclaimed the Japanese Captain Sato.
"Yes, IOA has sais to continue with the evacuation, it will take longer to wake everyone up by an estimated three more years, instead of ending it by June next year."
"Its going to be a bitch to settle everyone." said the Canadian Captain St. John. "Its lucky we got an extra moon to settle."
"The few leader we have woken up already has agreed to only settle ten percent on the second planet. The others will settle on the moon.". countered Captain Mohammed. "I for one was surprised that you found Arrakis."
"Yea, one of my crewmembers said it most likely a thousand monkey theroem in action. Everything about the planet match, Frank Herbert's description of it in his fiction." Said St. John. "Down to the spice's effect to humans, if the computer sims are accurate."
"You are lucky." said Captain Sato of the Akizuki. "That subspace rift in P2E-854 moved two ficticious planets, the one from the show Game of Thrones, though its closer to the books then the show. And alternative Earth from an alternate history series of books called Ring of Fire. The Oddessy is there with two diplomatic teams to talk to the various faction on each planet, and a team of physicist to close the rift."
"What is is this Ring of Fire series of books?" asked the German Captain Wagner.
"Its about an American small town that got transported to Thüringen during the Thirty Years War, the town is ficticious for us aswell as the location was never settled in our world. Current year there is 1637 and the Game of Thrones world match the current books."
"In the mean time we got your drink of choice, Daiyu." said Wagner.
Later that December, a massive operation had begun on the planet, now known as Valhalla, named after Norse form of warrior heaven and in honor of Asgard (the planet in the Asgard Protected Treaty Reach with the same name had been prefixed with Odin, after the rouge Asgard who had hidden himself there). The outer habitable moon orbiting the fist planet in the system was named Elysium (the outermost planet had been renamed Nifheim). And the inner one named Pandora, after the natives similarity ot the Na'vi from the Avatar movie. IOA had started the biggest operation ever carried by Earth in their space going efforts, twenty-twp engineering Battalions, about 800 each, had been selected and sent out there along with thier families as it was easier to hide the movement of such many troops with them in tow. Overseeing this was General Raj Singh of the Indian Army. Chosen by the IOA based on his expertise in commanding such battalions. General Singh was more than surprised when he was chosen since he had no prior knowledge about the Stargate or Earth's off-world activities.
And the follwing November, Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Landry was finishing up his final paperwork, Briadier General Carter will take over for him in a few weeks, after she ends her maternity leave. Her daughter Jade had been a surprise for her and Jack (the father), considering their relationship lasted had ended a month into the pregnacy. However he had few thing to take care of all of it in Valhalla.
"Waker, please dial Valhalla." ordered General Landry. "And congratulation, you have given an promotion."
"Thank you, General." saluted Walter. "Dailing Valhalla now."
The Stargate that Valhalla originally had was nowhere to be found, and it was assumed it had been destroyed in the cataclysm two-thousand years earlier. It was replaced with an left over from the old Carte-McKay bridge between the Milky Way and Pegasus.
"If you follow me." said General Landry, to the party of IOA dignitaries, that stood by the ramp befor the Stargate. As they walk through it they foumd themselves standing on a similar ramp in Valhalla. Where the Earth Stargate was deep inside the Cheyene Mountain, the Valhalla stood outside but surrounded by four fortifications in each direction.
"General, gentlemen, welcome to Valhalla." said General Singh, as he saluted his American counterpart, and the IOA party. "I hope you will like what you are going to see here today."
"We are glad to be here General." said the Brittish IOA dignitary. "We hope the progress you done here are as good as the reports suggest."
"Then you are in luck."
"How did you do that?" inquired the Japanese IOA dignitary.
"Through competition. I'd assinged battalions from different nations to do each job, such as building factories, shipyards or mines." said the Indian General. "If they finish early they get extra days off, beers or other items."
"I'm sure that the men from my nation is winning, right?" asked the Chinese IOA.
"Actually, they are behind the Americans, though one PLA battalion did finish the first shiplslip before the Brittish." reported General Singh.
"And civilian housing?"
"On schedule. The Elysians are doing most of them."
"When will we be start transfering scientists and non-engineering tropps?" asked the British IOA dignitary.
"Two weeks." reported General Singh. "And their families a week after that."
"Good."
Nightfall had come to Valhalla, and Generals Singh and Landry was sitting at Singh's office drinking Indian Whisky.
"Have you heard the news from Atlantis?" asked General Landry.
"No." answered his Indian collegue.
"Three weeks ago, on a routine search through the Atlantis City database left behind the Ancients, we discovered a hidden cashe of research data."
"Continue."
"In the months leading up to the Ancient abandonment of the city, their Science council started a massive research project into their own technology."
"Please, explain Hank."
"Ok, the Ancient hit their technological peak about three million years ago, and about a million years later they started some kind of decline."
"At the same time, thier population growth started to dip into negative numbers more frequently,
"By eleven thousand years ago, they had only around 200 colonies in 5 galaxies and forty thousand outpost in seventy five more. And thier technology had backsliped to the point they were five million years earlier."
"I fail to see the connection between their societal decline with their technological one."
"It seems their societal decline cost them access to reseources needed for most of their tech base.
"Even then what military technology they had access to was amounted to civilian peacekepping than allout war."
"Now it start to make sense how the Wraith could use their numbers to beat them in the first place."
"Yeah, but this research was into how to use thier current access to resources to build more powerfull weapons and armor and a replacemt for ZPMs, although rest of their old techbase was given a look at"
"Really?"
"Yes, Ptah did a last minute revision of his designs to the IOA. The ZPM replacement is however a gamechanger for us. Its eight times smaller than the regular ZPM but last about ten times less otherwise than that it has the same output."
"Good. By the way have read the IOA briefs that came in this morning?"
"No Raj. I did not."
"Here is a print out." said General Singh as he handed General Landry a few papers.
General Landry read the briefs and took a deep sigh.
"It what I expected, some of new tech are going to as advanced as we can get, the only problem is that most of our potential enemies may have an numerical edge." said General Lanudry. "But this constitution is going to create issuses down the road."
"Maybe." said General Singh. "It depends how effective this "Tau'Ri Commonwealth" in its ability to enforce laws. By the way, what is the news from the Grantville-Westeros system?"
"Better than we could hope, King Jon Snow has married his Aunt Daenerys Targaryen, and they hold the continent Westeros and Western Eosia, the King of the Wights bent the knee to him and disperced his undead army as soon as he saw the three mercinary Hatak ship we lent him, rest of planet agreed to join the System Goverment we setup.
"Cercei Lannister was killed by her brother and lover Jamie, after she tried to assisnate her two surving children, after they and thier spouses bent the knee to King Snow. On Grantville, we managed to overthrow Sultan Murad of the Ottoman Empire, various provinces of it has gone independed, and a Jewish colony has been established on the West Bank, with approval of the Palastine Authority."
"And Himmel?"
"Intelligience operations has started, we have been successful in contacting the various rebel groups on Himmel proper. Najor military operations will start in three months.
General Landry looked at his watch and with a deep sigh spoke.
"I need to get back to Earth. Thank you for mentioning the SGC's effort to support you."
"My plesure, General." said General Singh. "Its been an honour to work with you, the Americans are going to lose a great Officer."
And with that General Raj Singh stood up and saluted his SGC counterpart.
"Thank you, General Singh." said General Landry as he returned the salute.
"And may your granddaughter bring your much joy."