[Author's Note: Bit of a warning this is my least orginial chapter.
To candel06: Yes I intent t, though ME3 experience is limited to youtube walkthroughs and wiki]
Chapter 11: The Day Has Come
The Big Apple was in a strange state, for the first time since Hurricane Sandy nearly eight years ago, there was US National Guard troops in the streets. They had no clue why they and their colleagues across the US was deployed nor why they were supplemented by US troops in strange uniforms, uniforms that looked they could come straight out from some video game. Only high ranking National Guard officers knew. The US was not the only nation-stare that was on high-alert, the fellow 41 members of the UNTC treaty (what the TC part of the initialism was no one in the general public knew) was also on high alert. This status of high alert in those nations, drew concerns among the nonmembers of the UNTC treaty but was allied to one or more of the treaty members and had raised theirs in response.
The various news outlets tried to figure what was going on, but all the got was that a historic joint announcement from the UNTC treaty members was to take place on 10:30 am EST (or 14:30 GMT)
at Liberty Island in the Hudson river. Schools and non-essential workplaces was closed. And the various governments of UNTC treaty members had demanded airtime at the historic hour. Every one in the world was fixated at their screens or radio receivers.
On the screen was a rather standard looking stage with a long line of flags standing on poles behind it, and beyond the flags the Atlantic Ocean, which had been cleared off all traffic by US and Canadian naval vessels. To the right was the Statue of Liberty and to the left an assortment of VIPs, diplomats and military was sitting. The only thing that really stood out was two light blue flags with an upside-down V with an circle on top of it in gold and a silver ring behind it standing adjacent of the podium.
At the appointed time the President of the United States moved towards the podium as other world leaders stood in front of their own flags.
"Thank you all for joining us on this historic day." started the US President Jane Lisenbe, she drew a deep breath. "Now I am here to release information to the public. Information that had only been known highest levels of US, Canadian and Swedish governments since 1997 and later shared with every other nation that are now members of the UNTC treaty.
"In 1996, the United States Military learned that not only that we where not alone in the universe but our history wasn't what we thought it was nor are we the first species that called Earth home. Millions of years ago this world was the home planet of an incredibly species that we now call the Ancients.
"These Ancients looked like so much like us that we are considered, by other species in the galaxy, to be second evolution of the species, a statement that has some credibility as the Pegusus Galaxy, a Dwarf Irregular Galxy, has humans natively evolved as well. They explored this galaxy and the rest of the Laniakea Supercluster and nurtured life wherever galaxy they explored. But their greatest achievement was the creation of what we call the Stargate Network."
She took a pause to let the people across the world to process the information, before beginning again.
"The Stargate device itself is a transportation device that creates a stable wormhole between itself and another Stargate located in the network allowing for near instant transportation between those devices. As inferred earlier this network not only this galaxy but countless others, but we have only explored in detail two. This is through this 'Gate network we learned the truth but many points are to numerous to share here on a windy island, but I will give the major points.
"Around ten thousand years ago when the Ancient was at the end of their terminal decline, an alien species that are called the Goa'Uld discovered Earth. The Goa'Uld are a snake like species that invades a body at takes control of it, in effect enslaving it. They started to pose as the gods of the ancient world, their leader who posed as the Egyptian god Ra decided to seed the people of the Earth across several worlds to worship them and work as slaves. Around five thousand years ago a massive slave rebellion here on Earth drove them off world and buried the Stargate in Egypt, where an archaeological expedition from Sweden found it in the late 1920s."
The people who were watching and hearing had a hard time of believing the Choktaw born US president. But she was surrounded by other world leaders, so she had the credibility.
"Once we began to explore the Galaxy in earnest in 1997, we came into contact with the Goa'Uld and a war began between us. A war, thanks to countless men and women, we managed to win. Now the Goa'Uld are defeated and countless worlds and the people that lives on them are now free. While we didn't not use the the 'Gate to go to war, but it also have brought numerous and wondrous achievements to our world. Cures for Cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases has come from the Stargate as do the new energy grid powering our Planet, and other technologies we are using to cure our planet from what wrought upon her."
A strong whooshing sound caused a few people and cameramen to look upwards, and Pres. Lisenbe mouthed a curse at the military in Choktaw, as the military was a few seconds early.
"Flying overhead is our Primary space fighter interceptor the M(AF)TF-302 Eagle Flight II. Each of them are capable for both atmospheric and space combat and we have hundreds our arsenal, with a thousand more planned."
The M(AF)TF-302 Flight II, replaced the ULTF-305 Swallow as the replacing the Flight I 302s, doctrinal changes designated ultra light vessels of the Tau'Ri military as trainers only. The flight of thirty-five Eagles came flying close to the drink and did a low sloop over Liberty Island, then the lead fighter broke off from the rest of the flight and began to hover a clearing on the island before landing. Next came four different flights of fighters.
"Following the 302s are the M(AR)TF-308 Warthog our primary ground support craft, the H(ASF)TB-310 Condor, a bomber, the M(SR)TS-311 Hawk, a reconnaissance shuttle and finally the M(SF)TS-309 Owl, our primary shuttle craft."
Like the 302s the lead ship of each flight, broke off and landed. Then came a fleet of much more massive ships.
"People of the Earth." started the Pres. Lisenbe. "I present to you our six of our six hundred plus, of which only sixty-seven are completely built by our hand which the first four ship represents. The lead is the TCV Odyssey a M(FR)CBC-305 ReF. Odyssey class ship [Author's Note: ReF. means RetroFit] followed by the TCV Galahad a L(S)BDD-306 Galahad class ship, the TCV Archimedes a H(SFR)ADN-307 SRV Archimedes class ship. Next flying for three systems that have signed the UNTC treaty first up we have the TCV Butterfly flying for the Grantville-Westeros system. The Butterfly is a Ha'Tak class ship, originality built by the Goa'Uld for their wars and after the fall of the Goa'Uld many of those ships have entered our service, crewed by mercenaries. For a brief on Grantville-Westeros, the system was created by the Goa'Uld Anubis using a device that was far older than the Ancients. The device, now dismantled, used fiction to draw worlds from alternate universes forcing them to be stranded in our universe, the quirk is that Anubis only used Earth media for what reason why, he never told before being executed for the various crimes he has committed, not only towards the inhabitants of Grantville-Westeros but in our univers.e as well. The final two ship representing the the Serrakin and Hebridan Corporate Authorities, the AMV D!ka* and AMV Imzi Yrc.
The Serraking is a non-human species that manage to slip the Goa'Uld notice, they later liberated Hebridan from the Goa'Uld, the Hebridans were a Human slaveworld whose ancestors were related to the Celtic peoples here on Earth.
The various news outlets had a hard time deciding on what to focus, causing the camera to zoom in and out on the various ships. However they failed to notice eight more ships coming down from the Atlantic.
"And allow me to intreduce to you the eight most powerful ships in our arsenal. The TCV Yorktown, TCV Britannia, TCV Kursk, TCV Napoleon and TCV Chunlong all five are H(ASF)BBS-313 Yorktown, followed by the TCV Missouri and TCV Athos both L(R)BDN-314 Missouri classs ships. And finaly the TCV Enterprise a H(FSR)ADN-313 (CV) Yorktown class. The Yorktown class ships looked similar to an Odyssey class ship but a bit beefier, the Missouri class ships followed the same design principle but it was about 33% bigger than the the Yorktown ships while TCV was almost 90% as its flight pods were eight times the size of the Missouri class ship's flight pods.
"Over the next couple of days these ships and selected others in our fleet will visit different cities across our world and be open for media and civilian tours." explained Pres. Lisenbe. At that moment the Press noticed that Eagle pilot was USAF Lieutenant Naach Lisenbe, Pres. Lisenbe's daughter as she stood besides her fighter. "If I might direct your attention away from my daughter. I'd like to introduce some of the key people that saved not just Earth multiple worlds, several times, from danger."
Pres. Lisenbe looked towards two men and a womam in USAF dress uniform an five men in suits whereof one had a gold marking on his forehead and a single woman dressed for the occasion.
"First group is called SG-1 who where instrumental in the first ten years in saving our galaxy, first of we have General Jack O'Neill who was the head of the SG-1 now he is the supreme commander of all off world forces. Second we have Lieutenant General Samantha Carter, Gen. O'Neill second in command when they were operating as SG-1 and now she is in command of Stargate Command here on Earth."
Gens. O'Neill and Carter was thankful that they were dark sunglasses to protect them from the blinding camera flashes. And then Pres. Lisenbe continued.
"The three civilian members of the SG-1 is Dr. Daniel Jackson who thanks to his knowledge in archaeology and ancient languages unlocked the mysteries of the Stargate, and allowed us to contact and understand other cultures across the Galaxy. Standing beside Dr. Jackson, we have Teal'c who was once a warrior for the Goa'Uld but turned against them when he saw an opportunity to free his people and the slaves of the Goa'Uld by aiding us. And finally we have Jonas Quinn, a scientist from the world of Langara, a world that was once abandoned the Goa'Uld. Two members of SG-1 couldn't be with us today is Colonel Cameron Mitchell, who is on assignment, and Vala Mal Doran, who is at home with sick child.
"Second group is the Pegasus equivalent of SG-1 called AR-1. First off we have Major General John Sheppard, and beside him his former team member now wife Teyla Emmagan, a Peguss native that worked with us to defend her galaxy and in extension ours from threats. Next we have Dr. Rodeney McKay, who used his formal education in Canada to help us and the natives of Pegasus to develop new technologies to defend Pegasus, besides him we have Ronon Dex an another Pegasus native and a harden warrior and a loyal member for our off-world forces. Missing is Colonel Aidan Ford who like Col. Mitchell is on assignment."
"In time the actions of these brave people and others like them will come to light and future generations will look upon their actions with pride." stated the Pres. Lisenbe turned around and started to clapping the two groups and the other world leaders followed her. Pres. Lisenbe turned back towards the cameras. "This day is the day that the world will never forget and will mark a turning point on this planet's history. And finish off, as it seemed to forgotten in my speech the TC in UNTC stands for Tau'Ri Commonwealth, where the Tau'Ri is a Goa'Uld name for us and our planet menaing the 'First World' i.e. the first world that theuy found our species on."
An hour and a half latter as the world trying to get a grip on the Unveiling, the various delegates where enjoying a private lunch in the UN building.
The leaders of the UNTC treaty members and their families where talking about the events of day, as well as other invitees. News services where working the crowds trying to get UN ambassadors from non-members of the treaty to say a few words.
"Why isn't Mitchel here? Asked Gen. Shepard Gen. Carter as the two where waiting in line for the buffet which had every kind of upscale food anyone could imagine from multiple worlds. "And Vala?"
"Cam is holding the fort back at the SGC." said Gen. Carter. "And Vala is on Valhalla, babysitting her sick grandchild while her parents are at work. Besides would you have her in front of the cameras?"
"I can understand that, Ford is doing the same back in Atlantis." stated Gen Shepard as he looked around at the news folk where taking photos as if the world was coming to an end at any moment. "As for Vala…"
I agree with you Cam." said Dr. Jackson about his wife. He looked up towards the hovering ships. "I wonder when people will get used to all of this?"
"Perhaps in a few months, Daniel." said Gen. Carter. "This is a lot to dump on people all at once, unlike them we have had years to get a grip of it all. And we haven't even told them about the Replicators, the Ori, the Wraith, Ascension, and all of the times the Earth was nearly destroyed or conquered."
"True." stated Dr. Jackson.
"Well I don't know about you guys, but I'm recording all the news networks just to see what they say." laughed Gen. Shepard.
Three hours later and some 3000 lightyears away from Earth the TCV Odessey emerged from hyperspace and instantly activated its cloaking system.
Its mission was a simple but important one, to recon the double binary starsystem that was the prime candidate for the home system for these colonials. They did a scan of the area of the battle between the Ark Royal and the Colonials, detecting fifteen ships that were undertaking a massive recovery operation. After getting a confirmation that the system was the home system for the Colonials, next step is to see who these Colonials are and why did they fire first.
"Cap. Lorne we have reached our destination and we are cloaked." reported the helmsman. "We are at twelve light-hours and twenty five light minutes away from the nearest star in the system, and we are ready to begin the operation."
"Good, let's see what we have." ordered Cap. Lorne (regular rank Brigadier Colonel). "Ensign, show me a map of the system,"
Cap. Lorne was once the former second in command of Atlantis Expedition military component, and had been given the most valuable ship in the Tau'Ri fleet, turned his chair around and rose up, and took a few steps towards a small holographic table. It projected the double binary star system and marked each planetary orbit, at each location that the planet was in real-time a line projected upwards towards a magnified representation of its planet. The three barycentres was also marked though with an three-dimensional cross. Then as soon it was finished projecting the star system, it marked out the habitable worlds of the system. Two things that stood out was a binary planetary system orbiting the star farthest away from them and a gas giant that was orbiting the barycentre of the two nearest.
After another update, the table began to project a lot of ships travelling between the four stars, they all used a fusion based drive to travel, and occasionally some used some kind of wormhole drive to bridge the distance.
"Sir, I am getting multiple ship classes." reported the radar operator. "Attempting to ID the general ship type of each so we can figure out what they are."
"Are we getting any radio transmissions?" inquired Cap. Lorne.
"We are getting TV transmissions." reported the Communications Officer. "If we didn't already confirmed the system this would be it."
"Show me Ensign." ordered Cap. Lorne, and the ComO tapped a few commands on his station, and the holographic table started to project said transmissions on smalls screes projected from the table's edge.
"Welcome back to the Colonial News Network and we are still going over the top news about the battle between the Colonial Navy and the unknown ship that claimed to be from Earth." stated the anchor woman, before the ComO muted the screens.
"How do they know about Earth?" asked Cap. Lorne.
"Unknown sir, my subordinates are still gathering information from several civilian media channels." said the ComO while he listen to his earpiece. "We have cracked a local military encryption and are getting the name of the habitable planets and of the star system in general".
The names' of each habitable planet started to appear next to each world as well as the system name.
"So, we have worlds named Caprica, Leonis, Libran and Aerilon, and Cyrannus system, does it ring any bells?" asked Cap. Lorne. "And what level of encryption Ensign?"
"According to the Asgard the Cyrannus system was a source of brief conflict between the Goa'Uld and the Furling about two and a half thousand years ago, little of it is known however. Athena believes it was a provocation from Ares that started it, she don't know where it was though." stated the ComO. "And there is a mention of it in recovered databases of both Anubis and Sokar, but they didn't provided any navigational data.
"The encryption we broke was for navigational use, and my people found a backdoor."
"Sir, I've got a ship count and you are not going to believe this, but I have over nine hundred ships moving around the system, and a quarter are most likely are warships." reported the radar operator. "I am not counting fighter patrols, manned satellites or mining ships in the various asteroid belts.
"Their warships and manned stations are about the size as our dreadnoughts."
"Damn." cursed Cap. Lorne and pressed a few commands on a "on-screen" keyboard the holographic table could provide. Enlarging the nearest Colonial world, Virgon, and showing the traffic surrounding it, traffic that few world in the Tau'Ri Commonwealth could match. "Have they spotted us?"
"Negative Captain." reported the ComO. "But we are trying the decrypt any low-level military communications right now through the backdoor."
"Look at all of those ships, they are 2kly of Valhalla and why didn't we detected them?" inquired Cap. Lorne.
"From what I have seen Sir." began the ComO. "Their signal strength is atrocious, enough for them. They only need it to travel for a light year at most. Unless we knew where to look. It would have taken us decades to notice them."
"Good enough, Ensign. And what about those four lines of stations. It looks like some kind of defensive line."
"Sir." exclaimed the helmsman as she pointed to the bridge window. A massive ship jut sat there, dead in the black, floating just few hundred metres away from the Odyssey. "It just sitting there sir and I only detect fifty people onboard it."
"I see, very clever." said Cap. Lorne, as the helmsman blinked. "This must be their equivalent to our mothballed ocean going warships, instead having them waiting for them to be srapped or calling them back into active service, they put them into use as a defence line. Put a skeleton crew aboard, the can have the ships combat ready and be used as a defence station, and if the need arises, they have a ready warship much quicker than normal."
"Shall we report this?" offered the ComO.
"Not yet, I don't to risk for them to be intercepted." said Cap. Lorne." Besides we are here to gather information. Ensign Chidubem keep a lane open for us if we need to jump to hyperspace."
"Aye-Aye Captian." said the helmsman.
As the Odyssey was heading deeper into the Colonies scanning everything it could, a meeting was taken place far away from the Cyrannus system.
The room's walls was made with chromed aluminium and a large twelve seat table sat in the middle of the room. However only seven of the twelve seats were occupied. The three women and four men sitting beside it were human-form Cylons, who in turn ran the Cylon government.
"I thought that Earth was nothing more than a myth?" said a young blonde who wore a red cocktail dress who were the sixth model of human-form Cylon. "Three, could this be fake?"
"Possible." admitted a second blonde, she was the third model and wore a far more modest than the sixth. "However, one of my copies was filming the battle and she heard the wireless herself. For all we know, it could be Earth".
"If this is Earth, then we should act fast." sated a clean shaven man wearing a simple blue button-down shirt and pants, he was also the fifth human-form Cylon. "We should launch our attack now."
"Five, I am in agreement with that the Humans needs to be destroyed." said the Three. "But we haven't gained complete access to their defence network yet. In all our computer simulations of the War we lose twelve times for every fifty simulation, and that is before taking in the heightened alert the Colonial military will be now, let alone Earth. No, this isn't the time for our assault, we need information and time to assimilated it."
"Then what do you recommend?" inquired a Sphinx coloured man who was the fourth human-form Cylon model. "The arrival of Earth changes everything, now we have a whole new colony to deal with and judging from just one of their ships, we cannot take them lightly. They may even be a greater threat to us than the Colonials."
"Colonies, Four." corrected Three. "The Commander of the Ark Royal said that they were setting up a defence station for a new colony. We have to take into consideration that Earth has been separated from the Colonials for more than four thousand years. For all we know they could have dozens of worlds under their control, and we haven't event talked about their weapons. If they can do that to a Colonial Battlestar, we don't stand a chance against that firepower."
"Do we have any idea where this colony is, Three." inquired a Cathay coloured Eight. Unlike the Colonials, the Cylons had explored their immediate space for the for last forty years. Even then most world within a hundred light year radius was taken as factory worlds.
"From the video my copy sent over, they use a differentgform of FTL than the Colonials." explained the Three, and started to play back the video her copy had sent. "Their ships accelerate into some kind of hyperspatial rupture. And if we take their entering vector for face value, it seemed to travel to Kobol itself."
"Kobol!" spat the Five. "We should have nuked it when we found it, turn it to a radioactive wasteland just to spite the Colonials."
"This can be opportune moment for us." said the first ever human-form Cylon. Who had some idea what the state of affairs were in the galaxy, but he haven't heard of the Tau'Ri before nor has Anubis been heard from in four whole years, but he had assumed that Anubis and the Goa'Uld had destroyed each other. "We know where they are. We can launch an attack end them once and for all."
"Don't be foolish, One." countered the Six. "You have seen their weapons, why go after them."
"Because they are humans or have you forgotten what they did to us?" snapped the Five as he slammed his fist upon the table. "They enslaved us!"
"The Twelve Colonies of Kobol did, but Earth did not." countered the Six. "So why commit the sin of murder before the eyes of God when it isn't justifiable. Besides this may b a blessing for us."
"How so?" inquired the Three interested by Six's changed tone of voive.
"Sister, do you remember your history regarding the 3rd and 4th World Wars on Taurob?"
"Well that is an idea Six." said the Three with a grin. "Yes, it could work."
"Can someone fill the the rest of in on the joke" inquired the One in frustration.
"Those two wars on Tauron was won by the weakest nation on Tauron." said the Six. "And do you know how?"
"Do we even care!?" snapped the Five.
"Because they got the other nations to fight each other to the point they had used all of their strength they moved in and defeated them all." noted the Six. "That is why we should care."
"Yes.. that could work," said the One with smile, once he finally realized what the Six was putting on the table. "Why fight the Colonies and potentially lose everything, when we can make them fight each other."
"But how?" asked the Five.
"We could use their belief in their false gods against them." offered Cavil. "The main reason they never went searching for Kobol once they got FTL, was because they believed it to be a sin against their false gods. If their cousins have taken Kobol we can use that to drive them to war."
"This could work, but could also bring them together, a reunion on Kobol could be played as a sign by their gods" stated the Five.
"They had no contact between each other in four thousand years." said the Six. "There must be something that we can use against them. We just need to find out what.
"We need to drop a few more copies into areas where they could be most useful, especially in the Colonial's deep space telescope program."
"One of my copies is the head of that program already." stated the Four. "That is how we have been able to hide our ships travelling back and fourth"
"Still, there are going to be a great effort to find Earth now." said the One, wondering which copy of a model to use in this operation. Eight and Three were out. An Eight was in the military force that made contact and could be brought in as a witness. And a Three was the reporter in the same battle. And a Five was part of the education ministry, and as the Four previously stated that one of copies were head of the Deep Space Program. And and a fellow model One copy was altso a no go due to their apparent advanced age. So it could only be a Two or Six, both were viable but he knew who would give the most bang for his money.
"Six, has either of your two copies talked to Cain or Baltar about their families?" inquired the One.
"From what I have gathered from their debriefs, they have so far been more interested in our private parts than anything else." said the Six. "Our spy with Baltar believes that she can have total access to the military network in two to three weeks or so, it is all about building trust and we can't really rush it. Then again this was before the arrival of Earth. The same can be applied to Cain. But to answer your question, they haven't gotten to that part except we used the same last name for both of them."
"Tell them to start mentioning their family and that they have a sisters working with Baltar, another with Cain on Scorpia shipyards as a civilian contractor, and a third sister working as a top researcher at the Deep Space Program."
"Doable, I can fudge the records to make her a university graduate who did some field work somewhere isolated for some time." confirmed the Four.
"Good, and who knows, maybe having three Sixes around will cut the time we need to get the access we need and gain another advantage over our enemies." said the One as the Six grinned a bit at the idea.