A/N - I don't own the Stargate franchise.
Happy Christmas.
The Horrific Truth about the Aschen.
Sam grinned as she took the bottle of beer from O'Neil, although her smile barely reached her ears - after their recent adventure, the SG-1 team had little to smile about.
"Thanks," she said.
"You're welcome, Carter," the colonel said quietly, his usual nonchalant manner gone for the time being while he took his seat, and the rest of the team thought in silence.
When they had made contact with the Aschen, a human race whose history mirrored the histories of so many former slave colonies of the Goa'uld's empire in how their ancestors had rebelled, and they had successfully driven away their Goa'uld oppressors/masters - depending on whom you asked - before burying the Stargate on their homeworld, they had assumed they finally had an ally to turn the tide in the war against the Goa'uld.
The System Lords were still out there, and despite the Protected Planet's Treaty protecting them against the worst of Goa'uld retaliation, all SG teams were more than aware the Asgard was merely bluffing. While the Asgard were a powerful race, their resources and attention were focused on their near-endless war against the Replicators (Sam wished the Asgard would find a better way of ending the Replicators in such a way which prevented them from returning stronger than before; the longer the war stayed at its current deadlock, the worst things were going to get), so Earth essentially stood alone.
The SG teams' standing orders were to locate and bring back advanced technology in order to reverse engineer so they could fight off the Goa'uld, and while they had recovered some technologies here and there, most specifically during that mess when the Stargate was to be closed down thanks to Kinsey and Samuels had both banded together to shut down the program when Apophis was closing in; both of them arrogantly believed the Goa'uld would not attack, despite Daniel's ill-advised trip to an alternate reality where that Earth had experienced much the same things they had themselves, except Teal'c was not on their side and was still First Prime to the Goa'uld System Lord Apophis for that reality's invasion of Earth, from what Daniel had told them when he had gotten back - they might not have entirely believed him and his story at first, but over the years and their experiences with other planets, and time travel, they had seen enough to believe anything was possible - while the Goa'uld worked to enslave the human race because of the leaders of that reality's shortsightedness.
The Aschen were much like the Tollan, both of them were human races who were a century or so more advanced than contemporary Earth's technology, and the Aschen had bioweapons among other things which would be of interest to that of Earth. But they were conquerors and it wasn't until Daniel had pieced together enough clues found on one of the worlds the Aschen had under their control, that if Earth had become allies with them, the Aschen would have slowly conquered Earth, giving humans one miracle drug after another, allowing them to live longer, curing diseases which had staggered human biotechnology for decades in one stroke…. And rendering most of the human race infertile, until the planet was ripe for conquest and takeover, giving the Aschen incredible power over the planet.
None of them was quite sure of the circumstances, but it seemed in another timeline Earth did go through with the alliance, and it was likely the SG1 team had tried to stop them before sending a message back through time to warn their past selves not to meet with the Aschen. And they had nearly blown it although it was hardly their fault the message hadn't contained more information about what and whom to avoid, now they knew and now they'd been debriefed, all SG teams were warned not to meet the Aschen for any reason.
The orders included ignoring their technology. The Aschen were powerful by human standards, and there was no telling how long it would take before they made their way to Earth.
It was just too bad the Goa'uld could not be as easily ignored.
"Have you heard anything concerning the Aschen, O'Neil?" Teal'c broke the silence while he drank his own drink.
O'Neil was just taking a swig when he lowered the bottle thoughtfully. "Let's just say, for now, the higher-ups in government aren't happy with the fact we won't be getting big honking space guns any time soon; they're still not happy, but the ones who've heard what the Aschen would have done to us if we'd gone through with the treaty, are even less happy. Kinsey, for now, is quiet on the subject although he raised one helluva stink about it. The bioweapon they tried to use on us has silenced a lot of people, but not many."
Daniel snorted in contempt while he took a swig from his own bottle. "Of course he would," he sneered; the archaeologist had been one of the first to discover the truth of the Aschen with Teal'c's help, when they had discovered the ruins of that city which had just literally been buried, and built over with farmland. "He's probably unhappy another one of his pointless schemes for getting rid of us, and since he got to the President before you did, Jack, he's probably under a lot of fire for doing so."
O'Neil conceded the point while he drank, mentally shuddering at being in close proximity to the slimy politician who was so close-minded and stupid he was willing to do whatever it took to get his career to skyrocket.
"Isn't it odd, in the same year one of the first human races we've encountered who've been advanced enough to pose a serious threat to the Goa'uld have been destroyed, and then we encounter another and discover they're just as dangerous?" Sam commented.
"You are referring to the Tollans?"
Sam's face hardened as she remembered the way the Curia of the Tollans were manipulated by Anubis, a powerful System Lord. That was one of the reasons why the alliance with the Aschen had been taken so seriously; this System Lord had the power to seriously back up his words, unlike most Goa'uld System Lords, who liked believing in their own delusions of grandeur.
"I wish they had still taken the Goa'uld seriously, instead of entrusting their safety on those weapons and defences they had until it was too late," Sam lamented, thinking of everything they could have learnt had the Tollan changed their attitude from their holier than thou you can never understand attitude when they'd first met."
"They wouldn't," all eyes turned to Daniel, who'd just spoken. The archaeologist's eyes were hard and his lips were curled in a sad but still annoyed sneer. "Even when Skaara was there, and the Goa'uld motherships and fighters bombed the planet, they still didn't change their views. They have lived with the belief they were smarter than others for centuries, it would likely take longer for them to see they were wrong."
The others felt the view was harsh, but it made sense.
"How long would it take for the Aschen to test the Stargate addresses?" Teal'c asked.
"Probably not so long," Sam shrugged, although she didn't know herself, and truthfully she didn't really care how long it would take. "They're probably trying them out now, although it won't take them long to find the black hole. What worries me is some of them will come back."
The other members of the SG team looked at each other, but they didn't know what to say about that. They knew the only female member of the team had a point. The Aschen might not have a massive empire like the Asgard, but they had worlds under their command, and on any of them some of them would likely survive even if the link between the Stargate connected to the black hole ripped their own world to pieces.
And they would come back for revenge.
"You know," O'Neil said slowly, "I think this is one of those moments where I wish we'd disclosed the existence the damn gate."
Sam looked torn between nodding and shaking her head at the same time. "You think if we had the resources of all the military forces around the world, and the aid of scientific institutions as well, we'd be in a better position to fight the Goa'uld?"
"Not just that; I just think sometimes while we're protecting everyone on Earth, we're holding them back," O'Neil said.
"You know why the President ruled out against disclosure," Daniel pointed out, "he didn't want to cause a worldwide panic."
That wasn't quite true, and all of the team knew it. Hell, everyone in the Stargate Program and even those involved in the peripheral of what they were doing in the mountain base knew the disclosure decision and the long term consequences of it were not to protect the world, and the other nations, but it was also to ensure whatever came through the gate belonged to America, and America only.
It was so pathetically logical and yet it was selfish in the long term as well.
But ever since the pressure placed on the Program by the government during the first year of the Stargate's activation since Apophis came through and began abducting people for hosts, resulting in Kinsey personally ordering the shutdown of the gate, everything that did come through was relegated for American use.
It was cynical, but it was the truth.
What worried them the most was there were likely others like the Aschen out there and next time, they might not be as lucky.