A Brutal Reality

by BIG Z1776

NOW BEING REWRITTEN. The Colonials have just started taking their first steps into a much larger galaxy where danger, friends, and the unknown lie around every corner. And Earth has now taken the next huge step into the galaxy and its rise to superpower is all but inevitable. So what's to stop them? Old enemies from the past thought to be gone and new ones not yet seen.

2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Location: Terra Nova, Fort Jacob Carter Military Training Reserve

Date: February 6, 2025

Time: 1930 Zulu

The silent dark of the Terra Nova night was a beautiful one, none could contest that. The silent shimmer of glowing flora lit up the forest in a vast array of cool blues, greens, purples, reds, oranges, and yellows of every description imaginable. From the neon lit flowers the size of a pumpkin hanging from the branches of the tallest trees to the grass and vines that pulsed to green and blue as the wind disturbed them creating a mystifying pulse that could captivate the most seasoned of Terra Nova's garrison and colonists. There were new species being discovered daily by professors and scientists at Terra Nova University leading bands of eager students into the pristine rainforests of the outer islands and the main military training base housed upon the largest island in the cluster. These little exploration parties always had a trio of armed and armored troops sent from one of the eight new International Response Brigades for protection.

But out here on the Fort Jacob Carter International Training Reserve there were no civilians out exploring for new discoveries. Instead, a pair of armored four wheeled military vehicles was cruising quietly down a worn dirt track on a mission. They were M-403 Wolverine All Terrain Reconnaissance Vehicles from Delta Company of the 1st Infantry Brigade's, 1st Battalion, the Vanguards. This was an American and British Commonwealth brigade of more than five thousand troops that was the pride of the Earth Defense Force's ten infantry brigades as the first unit set to be activated.

The vehicles driving down this rough dirt track were of a deadly and efficient design worked on by British engineers. It was wide, allowing it to follow in the tracks of the larger M-401 Thor Main Battle Tanks and M-402 Honey Badger Armored Personnel Carriers. It was an extremely adaptable vehicle, with modifications that ranged from weapons loadouts comprising of either a fifty caliber machine gun, mini gun, an M-503 Plasma Cannon, a Javelin missile launcher, or nothing at all for a medical variant. This allowed for the Wolverine to become a flexible weapons platform carrying six fully armored troops in the front with the drivers, who could both take control from either one of the seats in the event of one of them being hit or unable to drive. In the back were four seats that were all easily acceible to the doors so that the vehicle could be quickly entered and exited at will. Driving this was a powerful electric motor that had a three week charge within its massive battery banks. This made it extremely quiet, which was precisely what was needed for the mission in mind that these two were on.

There was a complete feeling of calm as the squad of troops within the two Wolverines kept their eyes peeled out into the calm rainforest night. They were none of them activated, each was classified as a trainee, still several weeks from passing the first phase of their arduous training. Their leader was Squad Leader Jason Hanson(Chris Pine), sitting in the shotgun seat in the left hand side of the font Wolverine with the British driver, Lilly McFierce(Natalie Dormer), in the right hand seat driving the Wolverine in what she'd called the "right side of the car," much to the annoyance of her American and Canadian comrades. On the fifty caliber machine gun was the squad he-man, American Tremon Hawkins(Terry Crews), who was practically a walking block of muscles capable of lifting the Wolverines they found themselves driving. He had to duck several times to keep from having his helmeted head swatted by the low lying branches that engulfed the dirt track every so often, voicing his displeasure whenever he wasn't fast enough. In the passenger seats were Canadians Roger Filmore(Dave Franco) and Derrick Turgeoues(Cyril Mourali)(From Quebec who always spoke French whenever he was unhappy about something), and New Zealander Andrew Tess(Liam Hemsworth). In the opposite Wolverine was the British driver Jeremy Waters(A Young Jeremy Clarkson) and Scotsman Richard Kirkham(Luke Evans), Americans Daniel Graves(Jesse Plemons), Anna Smith(Hayden Panettiere), and Douglass Lee(Donald Glover), and the lone Australian Stephanie Powers(Caitlin Stasey).

Each of them had the standard issue M-501 Modular Assault Rifle in or near their hands, loaded with Intar rounds that were set to a maximum power setting to deal with the armor of their opponents, Alpha Company from their own 1st Battalion. The armor, the Mark One Personal Protection Apparatus, that was now standard was a culmination of protective technology that was made up of hardened trinium ballistic plates holding a mesh of shock absorbent Kevlar and trinium foil woven together with temperature regulating circuits that were able to keep their base body temperature within a comfortable margin. Their armor had a chest plate that slid over an abdominal plate the was snapped onto a pair of plates on their back with pockets with enough storage space to hold a dozen spare magazines, and seven grenades of their choosing. These in turn connected to the shoulder plates with other protective armored sections on their arms with a special readout on their recessive wrist displaying anything they needed. They also had a pair of plates on both sides of their waist with thigh and shin plates giving complete protection to the soldiers of Earth.

Then there were their helmets. These helmets were the wet dream of Ghost Recon fanboys as they looked very much like the helmets of Tom Clancy's favored commandoes. There were rail attachments on the front, sides, and back of the helmet for attaching all manner of gadgets and attachments to assist in combat. Their helmets contained a set of built-in cameras, a flashlight, and two types of laser designators. These cameras fed their input to a special deployable secondary visor which could project the night vision feed onto the visor which went all the way around their face with the self-contained breathing apparatus over their nose and connected to the large rigid jaw plates that connected to the helmet itself and sealed itself around the bottom. On the right hand side of the helmet was a bulging section with a stubby little antennae with a thick protective insulation. This little bit was where the brain of the helmet and its voice came from. This compact computer could project a series of windows on the visor where items such as maps with IFF signals added, armor integrity, target identification, squad status, and sharing what it was seeing to every single Earth unit within range.

But much of this ability was shut down for the training exercise, to make the units involved train on relying on themselves rather than their equipment which from day one they'd been told was going to malfunction even if their designers were adamant that they would do no such thing. All they had access to was their night vision, their squad status, and their IFF signals. But, there opposing force had the exact same handicap as they did.

"Why is it that we're always the ones they send out to get shot at first?" came the voice of Tremon over the radio as he ducked beneath a glowing bunch vines that caught around his fifty cal and made him pull the annoying plants off bit by bit.

"Bru it's because the Captain don't like us," Douglas responded from his spot in the back seat of the second Wolverine.

"Well if you buggers would stop calling his "your nigga" maybe he wouldn't sent us on the suicide recon," Lilly replied with classic British tact.

"The Captain's a brotha ain't he?" Trevon responded, "Not my fault he's stuck up."

"He is a superior officer and an English gentleman," Jeremy replied, "He's not your brotha."

"Waters you've never been to hood have you?" Jason responded.

"I lived in a neighborhood in Cheshire, so you know."

"That ain't the hood Waters!" Trevon responded testily.

"Hold it!" Jason all of a sudden snapped, making his Wolverine skid to a stop suddenly.

Then the forest rang out with the sound of metal smashing into metal as the second Wolverine smashed into the rear end of the leader. This hit fishtailed the first Wolverine slightly with a loud scratching and grinding noise that ground the paint off the nose of the Wolverine and bent in the water cans on the back of the first Wolverine. It was impossible to miss it, and the entire squad voiced its discontent.

"Sorry," Waters said weakly in his deep British voice.

"Waters what the fuck's the matter whichyou!" Trevon said holding his hands out in complete disbelief as he stood behind his gun.

"You bloody stupid pom," Andrew, the lone New Zealander groaned as he leaned his helmeted head against the back of Lilly's chair.

"Next time I drive!" Filmore growled from the fifty cal of the second Wolverine.

Lilly just pursed her lips and looked at Jason, "How are we this rubbish?"

"Well when the EDF allows civilians to enlist alongside veterans this is what happens," Jason growled, opening his door.

"What is it boss?" Tremon asked, scanning ahead as Jason looked around, scanning the brush for what he had halted the two Wolverines and lead to their fender bender.

"I don't know, I saw a pulse from the leaves of that batch of ferns over there," Jason responded quietly, pointing to a slightly raised position to their left front about thirty meters away, "Dismount."

"The brush is too thick for it to be a gust of wind," Tess whispered as he and the others secured the immediate area, ducking down into the low but thick glowing brush, sending glowing dots of pollen and small whisps of bug swarms to rise from the ground.

"The critters don't hunker down in the brush at night we would've seen a bigger disturbance," Filmore added over the radio, drawing from past experience fighting at night and learning about the way the Terra Nova brush acts, moves, and breathes.

"Section One, on me, let's check it out," Jason calmly ordered, and pulled his rifle tight to his shoulder, hunkering down low in the undergrowth, "Quietly."

Jason carefully moved forward, keeping his weapon ready to go, and finger ready to pull the trigger, but maintained careful trigger discipline as he had been trained to in the National Guard's 36th Infantry Division. Behind him was Graves, McFierce, and Filmore with Hawkins covering them with the fifty caliber. All four of them carefully advanced, picking their way through root and mossy rock strewn ground. But before they could confirm what exactly was in front of them a stream of red bolts streaked right at them as the loud chattering sound of the machine gun it was fired from lit up the treeline off to their right.

"Contact right!" Tess called out, firing back immediately, ducking to a knee.

"Get to cover now!" Hanson ordered, "Report contact to the Captain!"

Jason ducked down to his back immediately, instinctively dropping behind a root covered rock for cover. He saw and heard the return fire from the rest of his squad mates as the single popping sounds of the opfor's rifles. He heard the radio call of one of his trooper's radios calling their company CO to alert them to their contact with the opfor. The red bolts streaked back and forth between the groups of EDF troopers and their vehicles' own weapons. The brush was so thick that the ambushed recon squad couldn't see what they were shooting at except for where the red intar stun rounds were coming from.

Jason looked out and saw the flash of a single rifle and this illuminated the outline of a single armored opponent leaning up against a tree trunk above the brush. He snapped his rifle up, aiming down through his hybrid sight and lined up the red crosshairs on his target and pulled the trigger, letting a three round burst fly downrange. The rounds impacted right on target, slamming right in the man's chest, making him lurch back, collapsing against the tree. Jason then got the idea of where the machine gun was, judging from the arc of fire and the impacts of the other rounds from his own squad. And that fire seemed to be getting less effective, as he saw Tess take a shot to his right as he tried crawling back towards better cover and he couldn't hear the fifty calibers of their Wolverines firing anymore, and this meant that they'd already knocked them out of the game. A classic ambush is what it was, they'd targeted their heavy machine guns from the outset. And now his own squad was reduced from the original force as he checked the squad status to see that Lee, Tess, and Pierce were already down.

"Everyone fall back to the Wolverines, I want fire superiority! Someone get on those guns!" Jason yelled.

"They've got our guns zeroed Hanson, what the fuck are we supposed to do?!" Smith yelled as she tried firing back at scattered targets.

"Then fight back and cover me!" Hanson growled as he jumped up and sprinted back to the lead Wolverine.

He could see his squad light up the brush as rounds kept coming back at them. He saw that Hawkins wasn't down, but was holding his M-506 SAW in one hand with the bipod propped on the hood, firing away. Jason ducked into the Wolverine, pulling the door shut with his boot and scrambled over the armrest and slinked his way up through the fully enclosed turret and grasped the fifty caliber in both hands after pulling the action back and took aim. But before he opened fire a stream of red intar rounds pummeled the roof and turret of the Wolverine from several directions.

However, having been in a similar situation in Afghanistan near Kabul while on an advisory role that turned into a fight for survival, Jason knew to duck forward, placing the strongest part of his armor as the only thing that could be hit. It was effective, and as soon as the fire died off for a split second he pulled up, and aimed right at the source of what he thought was the position of one of their machine guns. The heavy rapid thuds of the big HMG hammered away, slicing away the ferns, brush, and vines and soon enough Jason saw a pair of troopers make a break for better cover, and took them out.

"Tangos down!" Jason heard Hawkins yell, confirming his hits.

Then, as they were starting to see the fire of the enemy die off, another sparkle of lights and intar rounds lanced out at them from the right. And they were caught off guard with this attack to their rear. The banging noises of the rounds slamming into the armor of their vehicles shocked the mostly rookie squad. But Jason whirled the turret around and let loose a volley of fire. He didn't see two of his team go down as they rushed for cover and another one of their number get hit in the back as she simply ducked down, being somewhat slow to react.

"We're in a crossfire! Fall back! Fall back! I'll cover you," Jason ordered, flinching down as the intar rounds from both sides hit his turret.

Jason squeezed off another few bursts, trying to adequately cover his squad as they began to back off, trying to break from the one-sided engagement they found themselves in. He knew it was about time to get out of there, and popped the back of the turret open and scrambled out, rolling out and falling flat on his stomach as he fell from the rather large vehicle. Enemy fire followed him down, striking the ground and his vehicle. He peaked up, and saw that it may have been his chance and took off trying to link up with the rest of his squad. But as made a break for it, he saw something that royally pissed him off.

The remnants of his squad were standing straight up, weapons on the ground, their hands on their heads, and were surrounded by a group of troops, and two of them were ten feet from him with their rifles aimed right at his head. In Afghanistan he would have sooner tried shooting his way into a heroic death rather than a slow torture and then become the subject of a jihadi beheading video. But here, that wasn't the case, in exercises like this they were told just to accept being a prisoner, so they wouldn't have to deal with grudges, petty rivalries, and injuries from the fighting that such acts would cause. In the initial force on force exercises this was a problem but it subsided after the bad apples and stubborn cases were properly disciplined or got it out of their systems. Still, it didn't make losing any easier for a veteran like Jason, as he was one of those stubborn ones.

"Sorry mate," one of them chuckled.

"Not your day fella, nice fight though," the other one was all too pleased with saying.

"Yeah fuck you guys," Jason growled, throwing his rifle down after unbuckling the weapon from his vest.

"Don't do it Jason," Hawkins warned.

"Let's go, you're done for the night tough guy."

"Keep your hands off me," Jason warned as both went to force him forward.

"Yeah what're you gonna do?" the Brit among them laughed.

"I'll ask you how many deployments to Afghanistan you've been on before kicking your ass," Jason asked quite testily, poking at his chest.

"None," a new voice called out, "But I have been doing ops longer than you've been alive trooper."

All three of them whirled around to see an armored individual who was quite a bit older than all of them. They all recognized him immediately, and snapped to attention. This was General Jack O'Neill the commanding officer of the entire Earth Defense Force.

"General on deck!"

"No I'm not, as you were," the General responded waving them down as he turned around, "Squad leader, play nice."

"Y-yes sir," Jason replied and calmly walked along with the rest of his squad as they were taken to be locked up in the prisoner section used for these types of exercises.

"They've got a long way to go," O'Neill couldn't help but grumble to himself, shaking his head.

"Sir they're just beginning their combat exercises. It'll take some time to get these units in sync. But by traditional standards that wasn't a half bad job," the voice of the newly minted Brigadier General Cam Mitchell replied from his own observation point with the other company's company commander, "At least they're actually fighting by now. My pilots are still working on training aircraft. We haven't even gotten them in the cockpit of the Banshees."

"We've been training these kids for nearly two years," O'Neill grumbled, "You'd think that we would have made more progress."

O'Neill had a point. The Earth Defense Force had officially existed for three years, and the force it had become was quite impressive, at least on paper. They had over half a million young men and women on the pay roll from all across the world. And those that were here had survived the selective process that had filtered over two million people through a six months-long selection process that had gotten rid of the wannabe's, dreamers, and medically unfits and left them with a promising force of recruits who were slated to be fully activated within the year. This was tantalizing for O'Neill and the other senior commanders. Earth was for the first time capable of large scale operations with a ground force of sixty combat brigades divided into forty infantry and twenty armored brigades. Although the infantry brigades were a bit oddly named, seeing as they were more synonymous with mechanized brigades being heavily armored. Backing up this impressive force was a plethora of eighty independent support battalions. And each brigade had already been paired with its own LST-313 Fearless Class Heavy Assault Platform and four LSA-312 Enforcer Class Assault Ships.

This was a total force of three hundred ships for transporting and supporting their impressive ground forces. A decade ago a force like this was never even imaginable for Earth. But thanks to the enormous orbital shipyards of Terra Nova these ships had been cranked out steadily over the years, the final batches now going through trials and outfitting. But while the ships' crews were being trained all of them were tucked securely in the massive island fortress that was the Fort Jacob Carter Military Training Reserve. They were all docked underground, in a system of stacked hangars four hundred feet below the surface interconnected with a maglev rail system that was meant for rapidly and efficiently transporting and loading vehicles, troops, weapons, supplies, and equipment on board in complete secrecy. The Enforcer Assault Ships were stacked six high on four sides per hangar, and were spread out in a grid of ten different cloaked and shielded openings on the surface. The Fearless Heavy Assault Platforms were stowed in five slightly deeper and much larger hangars with three ships stacked on top of one another on each side of a square opening that was cloaked and shielded just like their smaller and more numerous cousins.

But before these troops could be deployed aboard Earth's mighty invasion fleet they would need training, and lots of it, which was what they had been doing for a solid year now. After each new recruit had been gathered up and shipped out to Terra Nova they'd been split into their branches of either Fleet or Planetary Response Corps, and training had begun. They were all subjected to the finest training regimen that anyone on Earth had ever seen. Its first twenty week phase was the basics, teaching proper protocol, discipline, and above all, fitness. The twenty week hell was a blend of international training styles taking best aspects from the all over the military world and turning it into twenty weeks of absolute hell. Recruits were subjected to the most challenging tests of physical and mental strength, fitness, and toughness. And all the while they needed to keep their wits about them and solve problems as they were at the razor's edge of their limits.

Obstacle courses were scattered all over the island along training routes and courses which had been designed by the same geniuses who had designed the courses of the world famous Ninja Warrior TV show and Gladiator Assault Challenge. These recruits had been the first of hundreds of thousands to be tested on these incredible crucibles, and were to this day subjected to a couple runs a day on courses that in some places went uphill, downhill, across rivers, on the edges of cliffs, and anywhere in between. These courses melded with the rolling hills, brush, forests, and streams, building up both the recruits' physical strength and mental ingenuity in the face of extreme adversity.

Then they were trained on basic weapons and combat. Experienced SG Teams and world leading Special Forces instructors had started molding these recruits into soldiers, teaching them how to work every weapon in the EDF's now considerable arsenal, forcing each to pass rigorous combat tests with their weapons against each other and their own instructors in some cases. To add to their misery they did all of this in full gear by now, and continued running the ever evolving Crucibles with little to no sleep, food, or water. It bordered on dangerous and often crossed that line but it was meant to reap profit when these soldiers went into real combat for the first time.

But this massive force was still ten weeks away from formal activation and the fleet was fifteen weeks away due to their own more detailed training as part of a crew onboard the most advanced ships in the galaxy. And these ships were already in orbit of Terra Nova and many of the adjacent planets and Earth itself. A huge fleet had been built up in the years since the Stargate Program had been disclosed, or at least the parts the military allowed to be disclosed. Hundreds of warships had been mass produced and stored in orbital shipyards, awaiting the crews which had begun their training on board ten weeks ago. The core of this fleet was its thirty Battle Carriers, the sisters of the Enterprise. And in support of this core force were nearly one thousand five hundred other combat vessels like the ever reliable Battle Cruisers, lethal Battleships, and incredibly flexible Carriers. But escorting all of them were the incredibly fast and maneuverable DD-311 Huntsman Class Destroyers, of which they had hundreds, only needing thirty crewmen and women to be completely manned and at a minimum it only takes one trained crewman to get it to maneuver.

Then there were the pilots. Each had been even more selectively chosen and filtered, having over two hundred thousand applicants, only to have around ten percent make the cut and these pilots were already training hard, flying 'round the clock in simulators, training aircraft that were effectively original F-302's with the back seat, and were ready for their own Banshees, thousands of which were tucked away in vast underground hangars linked to elevators at the large seven large airbases that were able to bring up these fighters to swap out with the surface detachment of Banshees along with U-306 Ghost Stealth Scout Craft, A-308 Mohican Gunships, and LCS-314 Condor Dropships. In their own three separate underground hangars along the coast were the EDF's atmospheric aircraft, A/H-322 Comanche Helicopter Gunships and U/H-324 Vulture Utility Helicopters. These pilots had been training on their craft for some time, with combat exercises already happening several times a day.

This force had shown itself to be able engage in small unit actions such as the one that O'Neill just witnessed, but having been a black ops operator he had high expectations. By traditional standards this little ambush was by the book, they engaged with surprise, violence of action, and crossfire. The capture of the other half of the squad wasn't a bad prize as well. The ambushed unit also had grounds for being commended, they didn't panic, they returned fire accurately and with their own level of intensity as the casualties inflicted upon the ambushers testified. O'Neill was also impressed with the fact that if he hadn't have stepped in the fight wouldn't have ended quietly, they had the will to fight to the last, and for a commander that is quite important.

But first O'Neill would need these troops to graduate, which to be honest upon reflection was looking to be an absolute certainty. These units were as good as they got, and the enormous city of Terra Nova Colony couldn't ask for a more secure insurance policy than the forces above and below them in the underground network of hangars, barracks, weapons placements, shield generators, and command centers that was the fortress of Terra Nova.

Terra Nova University

First day of class, with one of the most esteemed professors of Terra Nova University, and everyone in the class of eighty was brimming with excitement. Many were of course young high school graduates, but many were also professors of their own fields, seeking to gain their own growth in knowledge so that they would be able to take that knowledge and experience back to their own home schools and break the monopoly TNU had on offworld studies, advanced physics, and offworld botany, among the other options students could choose.

But recent high school graduate and freshman Hannah McGee(Jennifer Lawrence) wasn't looking to make money off of her chosen career path in Interplanetary Studies. That wasn't to say that the pay for it wasn't supposed to be good as part of an SG Team's civilian component, it was indeed very good. But more than that it was the opportunity of a lifetime to explore the galaxy, meet new cultures, and eventually she could end up teaching herself. Hannah wanted that life, she'd known that was what she wanted the moment the President had revealed the existence of the best kept secret of all time, the Stargate Program.

She remembered exactly where she was when that speech was made by every participating world power's head of state. Hannah had been seated in the room next to the family room, studying for her final exams of her junior year when she heard the release statement of how America had led the way into the stars and was then joined by most major powers in the finding of human worlds, alien species, one of which was mentioned to have been the root cause of how humans found their way off of Earth. And the thing was this, the President had said that thanks to some alien allies they'd been able to defeat them, and were now capable of so much in terms of technological superiority that Earth was now capable of colonizing different planets.

Needless to say, there were problems, lots of them. Protests erupted in every major city on Earth, most of them just that, protests, few ever turned into riots. A couple American embassies found themselves vandalized by citizens of nations who didn't like the fact that the Stargate Command was under American command in America. The Middle East was racked by unrest as investors realized that their days as an economic powerhouse of oil production were numbered. Nations like Iran, North Korea, and many of the African and South/Latin American nations were understandably outraged.

The more volatile of them went so far as to threaten to attack and seize what they felt they were owed, mobilizing their militaries for action. But upon UN authorization, the fleet was cleared to intervene should they attack and Iran got wise and shut up while North Korea completely collapsed after the enormous mobilization had completely emptied their oil and gas reserves in concert with a very bad famine that finally turned the military against the dictatorship that had held the North Koreans under a hellish rule and asked for negotiations to begin to form a new government which quickly gave way to the want for unification with South Korea, who were oh so glad to finally see their northern cousins come to their senses.

But the protestors who were shouting such nonsense agendas like Greenpeace who wanted no colonization whatsoever, lest an untouched world be "contaminated", or the unrealistic people who thought they had a right to know everything the government does despite very good reasons for them not to know, finally realized they weren't changing anyone's minds. They still protested on message boards and press releases, trolling the internet, but were no longer on the front pages. So the long process of applications to become colonists began, and among them was Hannah McGee, who, as a student of TNU her own family was allowed to join her offworld, but declined the offer.

That wasn't to say many of the other students' families didn't accept, most did, and as did the military dependents of the EDF. Who, in concert with families, singles, and others who came to Terra Nova with their skills, languages, businesses, and cultures created Earth's first colony of, by now, two million people from across the world. And that great diversity was reflected within the classroom that Hannah sat in.

"Good evening everyone," Hannah heard over the speakers of the auditorium, and looked up. Walking up to the front of the stage was a reasonable fit man wearing glasses, her professor, Dr. Daniel Jackson, "Welcome to Terra Nova University."

"He's cute," Hannah could hear a girl behind her whisper.

"I would like to thank you, and commend you for taking this class," Jackson said with a smile on his face, "As the syllabuses you had on your seats will tell you this is no ordinary class. You will be introduced to and will study a wealth of cultures from the primitive to the advanced. And, if my friends from there aren't too busy you can meet them."

That declaration got a reaction, murmurs from across the room floated into the air as Jackson started his lecture with a powerpoint projected onto the screen behind him. On its title page was something that the students in the room had by now become quite familiar, the Stargate. But the pictures were fading in and out, going between deserts, jungles, forests, swamps, plains, and mountains. All of them had the Stargate in the foreground, and all were very much real.

"This, is where it all began. The Stargate, made by a civilization that existed millions of years ago. They were known by several names, the Alterans, the Lanteans, and the Ancients," Jackson began, "They looked a lot like humans in physical appearance and overall physiological make-up."

The pictures then changed upon the click of control Jackson was holding. It then changed to pictures of a group of human looking people. Hannah took down notes rapidly, stating the important facts. But she hesitated at seeing the Ancients' appearance. And someone noticed it as well and raised a hand.

"Yes, question?" Jackson smiled, and pointed at the guy who proceeded to ask his question.

"How do we know what the appearance of these Ancients was?"

"Well in my time at Stargate Command myself and several others encountered Ancients both alive, dead, and in stasis."

"You've encountered them Doctor?" Hannah piped up, "I thought you said they were dead?"

"Well," Jackson replied with a smile, "Some of those incidents are technically classified. But my own personal experience is for another time."

"The military is still holding back Doctor?"

"Well yes," Jackson responded, "What happened is still classified and I don't think we'll see those incidents being released to the general public and that's that."

"Were you involved in anything that is still classified?" someone else asked, and Jackson had to pause, knowing that this question was a trap.

"No, can't say I have, I worked there quite a while," Jackson thought out loud, or at least played like he did, "Now if we can avoid any questions about the habits of military confidentiality…we have a lot to cover."

Terra Nova, Stargate Command

"It's different, I'll give you that Hank."

"A lot has changed since you…" General Landry replied…trying to figure out the right words to describe the unique situation that the Colonel standing next to him.

"Since I was cloned and decided on living my own life?" newly arrived Colonel Jack O'Neill (Model 2.0 as he liked to call himself) replied.

"Yeah, how's that working for ya?" Landry chuckled, turning from the control room window back into the newly renovated Stargate Command Control Room.

"Not too bad," O'Neill replied, "But there's no place like home."

The control room was at least bigger than the last one, with several banks of computer control stations keeping tabs on every aspect and every back-up function of the Stargate. The window angled up at the ceiling to deflect anything it could away from the guards on the ground floor who were the part of the ever present security detail in the room. In that room was a pair of reinforced concrete bunkers with a fifty caliber machine gun in each. They were up above the floor, able to fire over the heads of their comrades at the Stargate ramp. Then to add a more powerful line of defense that wasn't manned in person there were four turrets mounting M-514 7.62mm six-barreled Miniguns. Two were mounted above and slightly in front of the fifty caliber machine guns and the other two were mounted above and in front of them. That gave Stargate Command the ability to put down twenty thousand rounds per minute without a single soldier within the room.

Throughout Stargate Command were these turrets, hidden in the ceiling with their own power supplies and huge ammunition storage drums. Every corridor had one, with one mounted at each entrance to each junction. And controlling these turrets was a complex sensor system that was able to take action the moment there was a security breach. Not that it was likely to happen, there weren't many people who had that ability any more.

"There's probably more that's changed than what you remember," Landry pointed out, "Like not having our center of operations on Earth for instance."

"And not letting team leaders choose their teams?" O'Neill asked testily.

"We're not going back there Colonel," Landry replied, "You got to choose the military half."

"Just saying, if I'm going to take command of a new SG-1 I want to choose my team, the whole team."

"I don't think you'd choose any civilians if you had a choice," Landry responded.

"And here I thought I wasn't going to be very predictable," O'Neill half gasped.

"Once an operator always an operator," Landry laughed, "Regardless, you'd best get your team acquainted with one another. Miss Jackson is volunteering for a mission we've got lined up to P5X-471, I'm giving it to SG-1."

"Well at least I'll finally get back to work," O'Neill smiled, "Even if I'll have to go with the she-demon."

"She-demon, never heard that one before," a young female voice piped up from behind O'Neill.

"She's standing right behind me isn't she?" O'Neill meekly asked.

"Yes," the young woman in question replied, walking next to O'Neill, arms crossed over her chest, "She is. Colonel O'Neill isn't it?"

"What did the eagles on my collar and the name on my chest give me away?" O'Neill replied.

"I see the Asgard sure knew how to clone, they even made you as annoying as the original."

Brenda Jackson(Madison Riley) was the only daughter of Senator Jackson, the very same man who had been a thorn in the side of the military for years and got himself shot. The poor guy had been paralyzed by the bullet, but stayed on with the IOA and that's when Brenda's star really began rising and she became infamous among the military. The young blonde was on Senator Jackson's staff since she had turned eighteen, and had served on that staff for ten years, and in that decade and especially in the six years since her father had been shot she had become a real pain in the ass. And now she was here, hell bent on making a name for herself.

She had been placed as the team leader of a newly created team, which itself was a subcomponent of SG-1. Its name was Stargate Exploration Team One. It was twice the size of the previous SG-1, with eight men and women, the team leader, a pair of tech experts, a botanist, a geologist, a pair of medical doctors, and a cultural expert and interpreter. This team was just half of the large team, the military contingent was a handpicked unit of nine men and women which was known as Stargate Strike Team One, it was responsible for several things; protection of the civilians and as a special strike team capable of hitting anything and anywhere and getting away.

"I see you two have now met," Landry said, "O'Neill, Jackson, why don't the two of you get your team together and have a meet and greet? When you're offworld out there all you've got is each other."

"Don't need to explain that to me," O'Neill responded, saluting and walking out with Brenda rolling her eyes at him as she went to follow him.

"Miss Jackson, there's not going to be a problem between you and Colonel O'Neill is there?" Landry asked.

"We'll see."

That's that folks. The second chapter is now posted, and as always let me know what you think. I'm always receptive to constructive criticism and useful ideas. And you may notice I changed my mind about having duel sequels, it's just too much work and I figured switching POV's back and forth every chapter would be more efficient.

Next Chapter Preview: Well how about that, there's always a Jackson on SG-1. The question is this, how will the new guys compare to the old crew. A new planet with a whole lot of scientists itching to go, time to explore. And what's Carter up to?