"Before we continue onto our next topics of logistics and technology, Rybakov, make your statement regarding the Goa'uld technology we've found here."
Boris Rybakov was another of the academics the Program had imported from the University of Moscow, which served as the main entrepôt into the global academic community for both archaeologists and scientists. Rybakov was also one of the first to move his family entirely off world, and his son, a teenager, had been helping him with various work. The pair were well regarded in this, and had been held up as somewhat of an example for the other professionals who had been reluctant to relocate to alien planets.
"Yes General," said Rybakov, "While the Comrade-Colonel has been conducting his reconnaissance off-world, we've been doing the same for the different museums, catalogues and collections of ancient artefacts here on Earth. We've confirmed the presence of Goa'uld technology in the British Museum of London, the Lovre of Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of New York. We also suspect there are collections in smaller museums in Glasgow and Basel. Other continental collections, private and public, are suspected, but the movement of inventories due to the war has complicated tracking them down. Moving forward we want to broaden the search, particularly in the Levant and Mesopotamia-"
Zhukov interrupted, "That's being taken care of. I received the request for expeditions from Diakonoff some time ago. Speaking of which where is he? Shouldn't he be presenting?"
"Comrade Diakonoff is well known in the archaeological community of that specialisation, but not so well known in others, as such he's gone to China. We know one of the System Lords, Yu, spent a lot of time there." Replied Rybakov.
"One of my team is with him in case anything happens." Durov assured the marshal, "They're currently tracking down one of the larger Chinese collections there."
Zhukov nodded and Colonel Tarelkin of the logistical corps stood to make his briefing. "Comrades!" he announced happily, "We've finally broken through the bottleneck!"
As soon as the Program managed to demonstrate use they'd never had a problem receiving supply orders from Moscow. The real problem had always been hiding the arrival of these supplies and exit of empty trucks and trains from the wider world, and even their own comrades. The engineers had dug out a whole new tunnel to get supplies through, but the sheer mass of things going through the Stargate had proven difficult to manage and it had only been the brilliance of the logistical division's coordination that had made sure they received the ammunition and concrete the Program needed off-world.
Laughs and light applause followed the statement, but Tarelkin quietened them and continued, "While we can now supply you effectively and at pace, there are still some points to note: We're now using the Yemelyan Pugachev train yard at Arskaya to break up trains, 'lose' carts, and so on, so there's still going to be a delay on receiving your requisitions, but that delay is now consistent and deliberate so build it into your timetables. Second, as before military supplies retain their priority status. Unfortunately, we can't blame wartime confusion for supplies getting here anymore, but we can various trains east and west through the new rail hub and therefore disguise the movements of materiel."
Tarelkin paused while his own slides were prepared. "My department's remit has also expanded recently, with us now being focused not only on supply but the colonisation of planets and extraction of resources. For example, taking extensive readings discern safety, such as testing air, soil and water, then sending up a plane to check the immediate surroundings for anything unusual when we find a new world. We can survey a 300km2 area in a week, and if the initial readings are good the first colonists move in to level ground for larger aircraft and begin construction of a base. When all secondary surveys have been completed actual colonisation will take place. Now, we assign planets on basis of a metric so while your teams may not understand why they have to survey in a particular way I must emphasise that the specific processes are required. An example of this metric might be the presence of naquadah or ruins which increase viability, while hostile animals or invasive plant life decreases it. We've ranked 200 planets according to this metric and are currently only visiting the best ones for secondary surveys. As mentioned Elysium is the most surveyed planet where we're using medium bombers to fly in a day the distance it would take 3 months to walk. There's still the question of whether to bother colonising slight more difficult areas, like sailing across the sea to the next continent over from the Elysium base, or whether to simply open another base on another planet. Opinions welcome."
Tarelkin's deputy, Konovalov, now a Major, broke in, "Regarding support for projects, although our resources have increased we're still having to prioritise. We're largely retired the Gatefighter project, and instead increased work on the Hedgehog system. Failure rates are down on all launches but we're removed the flamethrowers from the arsenal, as they proved less effective than hoped. Among other things we've created a base solely for close support of off-world teams. Principally this comprises a double 56mm turret 'Sparka' on a variable frame. We got it off a prototype self-propelled anti-air gun and cemented the turret into the ground. As an infantry support weapon, simply by weight of fire this turret is devastating against the Jaffa infantry tactics."
Tarelkin continued, "Regarding other weapons, chemical and biological systems have so far proved largely ineffective against Jaffa in tests, we need something that either overwhelms the immune system entirely, or that targets the symbiote directly but we're looking into this currently… Now, regarding the weapons we've brought back, thanks to Comrade Gaius we're beginning to understand the processes and principals behind the modifications Vulcan made to the Goa'uld technology. For example, Vulcan modified his Al'kesh's cannons to fire more condensed plasma at longer ranges through modification to the magnetic containment field that keeps the projectiles together. This takes more energy, which Vulcan was able to achieve through modifications to the Al'kesh's powerplant, as well as the invention of a super-conductive alloy of trinium, gold and naquadah in a rough 2/5/3 ratio. Several results follow these advances, in terms of material, trinium, once refined and alloyed, is around 100 times as strong as steel, while naquadah has numerous sometimes miraculous qualities, among other things the ability to enhance the explosive power of nuclear weapons by 20 or 30 times."
"Ha!" cried one of the scientists, "We certainly showed the Americans with that test last year!"
Indeed, they'd tested one of their naquadah enhanced weapons on the Kamchatka Peninsula, knowing American submarines lurked around that area and knowing they'd see the detonation. Naquadah allowed for far smaller bombs, and though they'd yet to replace the more traditional heavy elements completely in the construction of the weapons the results had still be better than anything the Americans could produce. Following a fury of ink in the American presses Stalin had sent his personal congratulations to the physicists on base and struck a medal for them which now hung proudly in their break room.
Chaya was next, putting down her pen down and straightened her papers she began her own element of the briefing, "Sergeant Lavrentiev, Dr Tikhonravov and I have developed several new weapons systems by combining Goa'uld and our own technology. Firstly, Vulcan's powerplant depletes Naquadah at an increased rate in return for greater power. We've used the stock of depleted Naquadah to develop a rifle round with improved penetration. As you all know the Jaffa armour resisted the 7.62mm round, and while our initial attempts to create armour-piercing variants were successful the more advanced Jaffa Guard armour resisted them as well. We've now prototyped a Naquadah tipped round which shreds both armours which should give our SG teams the confidence to engage Jaffa directly if necessary."
At Chaya's gesture the projectionist loaded a picture of a heavily modified staff cannon in a stationary mount, a plume of vivid electric blue flame shooting in gouts from the bore.
"Secondly, building on my initial design for a plasmatic grenade launcher, we've built a 'plasma thrower', which contains the plasmatic reaction of a staff cannon within a specially formed magnetic field, ejecting this stream over 100m and capable of melting anything it touches. The power requirements for this weapon are prohibitive, but we hope to refine this in future." Another slide was loaded, this one depicting a strange looking bomb, sleek and cruel, "Thirdly, by including naquadah in explosive fillers, in a mix of refined and liquid forms, we've created significantly more powerful bombs. Of these, we've adapted German radio-guided anti-ship weapons to deploy from the damaged Tel'tak at distances of 20km or more. Initially this weapon was designed to strike from 5km but the Tel'taks are able to track the missiles by sensors rather than sight and therefore control the bombs over longer distances. Radio waves travel very fast so the distance isn't a problem, while there are countermeasures that can be used to block the radio waves from the control equipment on the craft but as we understand these aren't used commonly. If you'll direct your attention to the screen I'll demonstrate the effect of the bombs."
The lights dimmed and the film projector clattered as it started up. Chaya narrated as the film went on, "Here the bomb's already been released at a test distance of 10km, I've had the film circled to show the descent toward the target. This is on one planet deemed unsuitable for colonisation which serves as our testing range. The ship's sensors track the path toward the target and the radio-operator guides the bomb in by the orders of the pilot."
The film showed a mountain range, low clouds creeping over their peaks while roofs of a series of structures clustered around the base glinted in the sun. Then the ground seemed to heave up like a sea swell, the buildings and their surroundings disappearing into a pit as half the mountain collapsed, running down as if struck with a cleaver. The audience, especially the military members, exclaimed in surprise but Chaya calmly continued her explanation, "The weight and altitude of the bomb means it penetrates easily. This one was an early model and we used too much naquadah for the target. We've since modified the bombs and are confident that they could take out any target, from ships to bridges to bunkers, in a single shot, with a danger of over penetration on smaller targets. This platform has a current carrying capacity of three bombs and relevant crew after we removed the ring platform from the craft, with a 60% accuracy rate within 5m of target."
"The only problem is no one can fly it…"