Author's Note: I meant to post this chapter yesterday, but the time got away from me. Apologies for the delay.
After Ragnar left (he had been in and out all day), Daniel retook his seat and after a long pause asked, "Commander, why do your people want to bring down the Goa'uld so much?"
Sujanha noticeably tensed, seemingly ill at ease with his question. Finally, she replied, "Because it is long since time that we resolve an ancient wrong. The Furlings are the cause of the rise of the Goa'uld to power. It is our duty to bring about their fall."
Of all the reasons Daniel had expected Sujanha perhaps to give, the one she had just given would never have crossed his mind. Daniel had grown to trust Sujanha even during his short time on Uslisgas, but despite that and the Nox's regard for Sujanha, he still felt slightly apprehensive as he stuttered out a flabbergasted, "What?"
"The Goa'uld are thieves and scavengers. Did you really expect, Doctor Jackson, that all the technology that you see them use was made by their own hands?"
Daniel had no reply, and Sujanha continued in a tone that suddenly seemed so very weary, "Very little of the technology that the Goa'uld now possess was actually designed by them. Most of their technology is ours. A slight part belongs to a few other races, and the rest is their own creation."
"Staff weapon?" Daniel asked, naming one of the first pieces of Goa'uld technology that came to mind.
"Ours."
"Zat'nik'tel?"
"Ours."
"Sarcophagus?"
"Ancient technology mostly, though it is slightly influenced by our healing pods."
"Kara Kesh?" This Daniel choked out. He could feel for a moment the phantom pain of the ribbon device burrowing into his mind.
"Ours: an ancient and outdated version of our gauntlets that has been so corrupted as to be almost unrecognizable as formerly our own design," Sujanha replied solemnly, lifting one arm up slightly and tapping her gauntlet with one sharp claw.
"How? Why?" Daniel finally choked out after a long and tense silence. He wanted to understand, but he could not make sense of it all.
With a long sigh, Sujanha leaned her head against the back of her chair and closed her eyes for a long moment. Her lips moved with silent words. What she was saying, Daniel did not know. When she had reopened her eyes, she asked, "What have the Nox told you about us?"
"Ohper said that you were a powerful race who was an enemy of the Goa'uld. He said that you had dwelt in our galaxy long ago but had been caught up with other problems that had kept you from dealing with the Goa'uld long ago."
"What Ohper said was correct but is too brief and vague to be of much use. The hour grows late. Let me dismiss my staff for the day, and then we will return home, and after the evening meal, I will endeavor to explain in as much detail as possible how our technology came to fall into the hands of the Goa'uld and why we have not put an end to them before now."
An hour-and-a-half or so later, the two had returned home and had eaten a quick meal, the remains of what Ruarc had brought over several days earlier. When they had eaten and had mugs of a different kind of tea, Sujanha led Daniel to the living room and motioned him to a seat. She took her own seat with a half-stifled hiss of pain and then began, "I will tell you all that I know. Most of what I know comes from our histories, for I have lived long enough to see only a small fraction of what has transpired. I hope you are comfortable: my story will take some time."
"I don't mind," Daniel wanted to hear the whole story, hear some explanation for how the Furlings, who were supposed to be some of the good guys, could be the cause of the rise of the Goa'uld to power.
"My story then begins long, long in the past when my people lived in your galaxy. It was not our original home galaxy which we dwelt in when we first met the Asgard long before, but where our original home was neither we nor the Asgard remember. Around twenty-two thousand years ago, a plague swept across the Milky-Way. On the worlds populated by humans, it killed some, but it was especially deadly to those who were not human. Countless Furlings died, and the rest were forced to flee by ship, leaving behind carefully hidden stashes of supplies and weapons, as we hoped to return within at most a generation once the plague died out.
"For an age, they wandered the galaxies, nomads without homes, for so long that those who remembered our second home returned to the Creator. Eventually my people grew tired of such a way of life and began to search for a new place to call home. Six-thousand five-hundred-and-forty-five years ago we settled in this galaxy and named it, in our own tongue, Asteria. For many years, we were too caught up with renewing old alliances and building a new realm for our people to take the time to return to your galaxy to retrieve our supplies. Our technology had advanced greatly in the age that had passed, and the technology we had left behind was by then extremely outdated.
"A generation passed. There was much to do in Asteria: buildings to raise up, alliances to make, trading networks to set up, defenses to build. When one lives as long as we do, moreover, time and haste have different meanings, and in many actions then we moved slower than we should have. About three thousand years ago, we finally sent ships back to the Milky Way to rebuild our alliances with several ancient allies and to empty our storehouses. It was with great surprise and dismay that we found our hidden storehouses broken open and long since emptied. When we began to explore the galaxy more widely in a search for any clues as to our missing technology, we found a new race calling themselves 'gods' and using our mostly unchanged technology."
Daniel could feel himself calming as Sujanha's story continued. There was a good explanation for why the Goa'uld had Furling technology. It seemed so fitting and almost laughable that the Goa'uld were using tech that was twenty-thousand plus years out-of-date.
Sujanha continued her tale, "Around the same time in Asteria, we had first contact with a race called the Sicarii who at first seemed to be human. They were one of the main powers in this galaxy and were greatly respected for their skill with plants and their skill at arms. We first thought them to be new allies but soon came to realize that they resented and feared us for our growing power. Seventy-six years later war broke out between our races. The Asgard watched from the sidelines to see if we would need their aid. Through our treaties, we consider an attack against one of us an attack against both, but the Asgard had and still have their own battles to fight, thus limiting what aid they could give us.
"For one thousand six hundred years or so, we fought in a war that stretched across the Stargate network in Asteria. Both sides were relatively evenly matched. Our technology was more advanced and our numbers greater, but the Sicarii had a greater knowledge of the territory and were willing to go to greater lengths to win and to employ dishonorable tactics to gain the upper hand.
"Around 5300 A.S., one thousand two hundred years ago or so, many units of our troops and even some non-combatants at known settlements began to fall ill with a mostly deadly poison. Our healers at first thought that the Sicarii had turned their skill with herbs against us. It was not until much later that we learned how they really made their poison." Sujanha's voice was dropping the longer she spoke, the horror of evil memories clear in her tone. Daniel suddenly realized, remembering the facts Ruarc had told him, that she probably would have been a child at this point.
Sujanha rose and moved across to look out the window. In the low light, Daniel could see that her paws and her forearms were both trembling. After a long pause, she continued, "The poison was a terrible one. Most of those who became ill, more than nine out of ten, died a painful and lingering death, feeling like they were being burned alive from the inside out. Death was a relief. No cure was ever found. Water, food, touch, even ship-to-ship weaponry, it all seemed to spread the poison, and it was hard to guard against." From the way she spoke, Daniel had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that the Commander spoke from personal experience as to the effects of the poison.
"Over the next seven hundred years of war, we began to lose ground more and more quickly, despite the help of our allies, as more and more were killed, both soldier and non-combatant alike. We were struggling to keep our very civilization alive. We had no time or resources to turn to dealing with the Goa'uld, even though we did not forget them.
"In 5967 A.S., I became Supreme Commander of the Furling Fleet. Turnover in the upper ranks in both the army and the fleet were high, and at age 800, I was the youngest ever Supreme Commander in our history. With great difficulty, I managed to slow our retreat by a small margin, but we were still losing ground. Some began to think that the time of our people was fast coming to its end, that this war would be the end of our people.
"Eight-one years later, I fell prey to the Sicarii poison. Somehow I survived. My brother says I was too hard-headed, too stubborn, I think that is the English word, to die. Our other allies had paid a heavy price for supporting us and had no more aid to give us. It was just the Asgard who stood with us then, bringing as much aid as they could. Even with that and with Thor taking my place as Supreme Commander for a short time, we began to lose ground rapidly, even after my return to duty." Her having been poisoned explained some of Daniel's observations of her: her periodic limp, her difficulty rising sometimes from a chair, the pained noises. A poison with a greater than 90% mortality rate and no known cure would have lasting consequences for those few who survived.
"The situation grew even worse the following year when Thor was forced to withdraw all his forces back to Ida, as their battle with their own enemy, the Replicating Ones, was going badly. Over the next fifty years, the situation with the Sicarii continued to deteriorate."
Some look in Daniel's face made her pause and add as a side note, "I tell you nothing more than can be find in our histories, Doctor Jackson."
She continued her tale, "In 6100 A.S., I was forced to withdraw all my forces back to this solar system and bury the Stargates to slow the advance of the Sicarii who had lost many ships. With a much smaller area to defend, I led all the ships I could spare to Ida in a last ditch plan that would hopefully win me the war. Alone, the Asgard and my people were both being pushed back, but combined I hoped and prayed that we might conquer.
"After four years of fighting, we dealt the Replicating Ones a decisive blow and drove them back for a time. Thor then led most of his fleet to Asteria to help us in our own war. After six more years of war, my last-ditch gamble proved successful, as we began to drive the Sicarii back and regain our old lands. In 6468 A.S., our war came to an end after two-thousand-eight-hundred-and-eighteen years of fighting. Several races had perished during the course of this galaxy-wide war, and many more lands were devastated. It has taken us a long time to rebuild. Only now do we have the time and the resources to devote to another war."
There was a long silence as Daniel, stunned into silence by the enormity of Sujanha's tale, struggled to comprehend the consequences of and the loss of life from a galaxy-wide war that lasted for nearly three thousand years. Previously he had thought earth's two World Wars were bad. This, this was on an entirely new level, perhaps even beyond the wars of the Goa'uld. He felt sick. How many people had died? Whole races, she said, had died out, become extinct because of this war.
"After such a war, after so much death, your people are still willing to become involved in another war?" Daniel asked, his voice choked.
Turning finally from the window, Sujanha glanced across at him. Her eyes seemed so old, so weary. "It was not by our choice that our technology fell into the hands of the Goa'uld, but the consequences are the same. Our technology was a necessary part of their rise to power and enslavement of so many worlds. It is our duty to right this ancient wrong. We will do our duty in this whether or not we like what must be done to see it through. That is our way."
