Jump Chain Gothic 4 - Atlantis - Part 18

Aurora-class Warship. Pegasus Galaxy.

I'd not forgotten about the handful of humans known as Runners, who were hunted by the Wraith for some unknown purpose, although it could be something as simple as entertainment or training.

The reason I'd done nothing about them was that there were only a handful if Runners in the galaxy and I was focused on the fates of entire worlds. Not that they had much to worry about as the Wraith could not chase the Runners anymore since they couldn't use the gates or travel with their ships.

Still I had located one of the Runners on a planet, and as an act of kindness I was going to beam the Runner up to my ship, remove his or her implanet, and settle them on a nice planet somewhere in this universe.

As to why I even cared, well I'd killed a lot of people during my Jumps, and now that I had some free time I was starting to wonder if I was a bad person or not. I had no desire to be a hero, but I didn't want to be a villain either, and I did spend a lot of time manipulating people for my own ends.

So really I wanted to help out the Runners, assuming I could find them all, in order to make myself feel better. It wasn't as if it would cost me anything more than time and a little energy, and I plenty of both.

I walked over to the controls and beamed up the human life sign which was currently on a planet all alone. A moment later I was pleasantly surprised to discover Ronan Dex on my transporter pad

"Where am I?" Ronan demanded to know.

He had trained his energy weapon on me, and while I had my environmental shield on if the particle mangum was set on kill I could be in trouble.

"Calm down. You're among friends," I answered.

Since he didn't take my word on that I waved my hand and snatching his weapon from his grasp in a minor display of biotic ability. I hadn't as of yet developed any measurable mental powers, but my control of biotics seemed even finer than ever.

"You're an Ancestor" the Runner said.

I shook my head. This was an understandable misunderstanding, and he wasn't the first to have made it. The humans in this galaxy knew little of the Ancients other than they'd been very advanced in terms of technology, and that they had strange powers. Ronan had just beamed up onto a starship and then had his weapon removed from his grip by what must seem to be magic. So his mistake was forgiven.

"No" I correct "But I am an ally of the Ancestors, and I'll take you to the city of Atlantis after we get that tracking device removed. Once you've had your surgery we'll get you some new clothes and something to eat".

Keller should be able to do, and while the Wraith had no way of reaching Atlantis there was sense altering them to the fact that it still existed by taking a human they had tagged to that city-ship.

"Thanks, but why are you helping me," Ronan asked.

He seemed to think that no one would help him without having an ulterior motive, and given that he'd spent years running for the Wraith he'd earned the right to be paranoid.

"To tell the truth this isn't a lot of work for me" I admitted "I just happened to pick up the signal from the Wraith tracking device and found that it was coming from a human life sign. And I won't even be the one removing the device, I have a doctor for that".

I decided to be totally honest about what was going on.

"You must have noticed by now that the Wraith aren't chasing you anymore, that's because the Ancestors have returned, and they've used a device which prevents the Wraith from travelling to different planets, and they shut down the gates so that the Wraith can't cull anymore" I explained "So you don't really need my help, if you want I can send you back down to the planet, or you can stay on my ship, get the tracker out, eat some decent food, and see Atlantis before we find somewhere for you to live. You don't have to run any more or fight".

Ronan was a man of few words, but he wasn't dumb, so it didn't take him long to figure out what to do next.

"Thanks for the help. I don't know what else to say," Ronan told me.

He didn't need to say anything else. I was just grateful that he accepted his change in circumstances so easily.

"Oh you don't have to say anything Ronan. I know you are a man of few words. But I have one more gift for you" I said next "Well actually I have a few gifts for you. Most of which are just supplies to help you start a new life".

This would cost me nothing since I'd just replicate some food, clothing, tools, and a few other things for him and put them in a bag.

"It might be some help in the future to know that some of your people survived" I told the Runner "I've heard rumours of people from your world who are still around. Only a few, but it's something".

Best not to mention those that ended up serving the Wraith. It was doubtful that they were still alive. Either the Wraith would have fed on them because of their food shortage or they'd be cut off from their master and die due to lack of medical care during withdrawal.

"Thanks" Ronan said to me "I wish there was something I could do for you in return".

I gave the matter some thought.

"You could tell me how you made that cool sword" I said.

Ronan took the weapon and passed it to me,

"Here.I don't think I'll need it anymore" was all he said.

Nothing was spoken of for a few moments.

"Right then" I said after a while "Follow me to sickbay so we can get that implant out".

Once Ronan was in surgery I'd set a course for next dot on the map. One of them had to be the guy with that short range teleporting device. He was called Kiryk, if I recalled correctly, and he was a Human native to the Pegasus galaxy. He was once captured from his homeworld by the Wraith and made into a runner, much like Ronan.

During his time as a runner, he visited a planet with a technologically advanced race living on it. He was able to trade something for a teleportation device, which gave him an advantage over the Wraith. I was hoping he'd tell me all about that race and where to find them, or at the very least trade me the device for the removal of his tracker and the chance to start a new life somewhere peaceful.

(Line Break)

Game World. Pegasus Galaxy.

After finding Kiryk, removing his tracker, getting the device off him, and being able to get the gate address of him because he claimed he couldn't remember it, my ship and its new guests, were heading back to Atlantis for our turn at guard duty. Along the way Seven of Nine detected something on the long range sensors and we came in for a closer look.

My team and I transported down to the outskirts of the nearest village on the world we'd never been too before. Despite that I knew exactly what this world was going to be like because of the recognisable network of satellites in orbit.

In the canon timeline this planet was discovered by Major Lorne's team. It was found to be the real life setting to a game Rodney Mckay and John Sheppard were playing back on Atlantis.

As it turned out they were actually influencing the two major countries of this planet. In this universe they started playing the game, but had been forced to stop when they left Atlantis. I knew that now both Sheppard and Mckay were back in the city-ship, as part of the Tauri delegation, they might start playing again, and I wanted to make sure things didn't get of hand here like they did in the show.

I knew this was Rodney's nation as he'd plastered his face everywhere and all the women had short blonde hair.

"Hello I am Nola," greeted an attractive blonde who approached us.

"I am Gothic" I told the woman "With me are Cameron and Miranda Lawson".

It was a testament to how accepting of other humans the people of this galaxy, at least for the most part, that we weren't met with any hostility despite how odd we must look. Miranda, who I hadn't left in command of the ship for a change as Seven wanted to stay on board and study the satellites, and I wore our heavily modified versions of Vanir environmental suits. Cameron was dressed in clothing much more suited to to hanging with friends on late 20th and early 21st century Earth. We could not have looked more out of place without some sort of neon signs.

"Welcome to Geldar," greeted Nola as she led us to what turned out to be some sort of town hall "I assume you came to talk to the Oracle".

Indeed we had, but only I had known this.

"The Oracle," asked Miranda.

That would be the Ancient computer device which stood in the center of this room.

"The Oracle is a wise and omnipotent deity. Thousands of years ago he gave our ancestors life. He instructed them how to build their society, how to live their lives. His guidance was revered by all. Then one day without warning the Oracle ceased all communications," Nola explained.

No surprise there.

"The war with the wraith," I said to Miranda

We weren't wearing our helmets so I'd been forced to speak softly to Miss Lawson, soft enough that no one else would hear. Well Cameron would as she stuck close and had very good hearing.

"Our people were puzzled by this but they continued to adhere to his instructions, living their lives according to his teachings which they passed down from generation to generation," continued Nola.

The whole thing was like that Civilization game, which I'd always been awesome at, only in this case there were real beings affected by the choices the people playing the game made.

"Did you ever have any trouble with the Wraith," questioned Miranda.

"Yes, they've come periodically, culled our people, and destroyed our villages" we were told "However its been some time since they have been here".

Given that the Wraith didn't tolerate any advanced technology other than their own it seemed odd that they had blasted the satellites. Sure they would have been dormant until recently, but still I found that odd.

"Those who survived rebuilt but only to the level which the Oracle had instructed before he left" the native woman was now saying "We found ourselves stalled in our development, unwilling to push forward without the Oracles' guidance; hoping one day he would return to us".

Again I found these odd. Sure my world had its dark age, but that lasted for mere centuries not thousands of years. You'd think they progress somewhat even without any assistance.

"Recently the Oracle resumed communicating with us, teaching us many new things. He challenged us to think, to push the limit of our scientific endeavors. He changed the name of our country and revealed his likeness to us" we were told "Then again he suddenly stopped, only to start again quite recently. We do not understand why as we did nothing that could have displeased the Oracle".

That had been my fault. Causing the removal of the Atlantis expedition meant that Rodney had stopped by playing the game for a time.

"And you communicate through that," I said as I pointed towards the Lantean style console

The local woman nodded.

"Yes it is through this that we receive our instructions," Nola explained.

"And the Oracle knows when you have carried them out," asked Miranda.

Unlike me she did not know what was going on. Hence all the questions.

"Yes," answered Nola.

"The satellites" I whispered to Miranda "They monitor everything and fed the information the computers at Atlantis over subspace. Must be done over channels that don't get normally used otherwise we'd have picked up the data stream".

This was going to have to be explained to the two nations of this world before they got close to war, and that meant taking even more people to Atlantis so that they could see the truth of things, and have it all explained by the Ancestors, who they would believe.

(Line Break)

Aurora-class Warship. Pegasus Galaxy.

Once more my mighty vessel was in orbit of the city-ship known as Atlantis, it was important for the remaining Ancients to be guarded, and it did give me some free time which could used to manipulate people's DNA thanks to the use of a certain lab here on my ship.

I fully intended to spend a few days in the machine as soon as I could so that I could be nudged closer to ascension, after this next treatment I should be 'evolved' enough to start gaining super cool mental powers.

The treatment after that should adjust my mind enough that I could take in the knowledge contained within the Ancient Knowledge Repository that was within Merlin's cave. I'd left it there in case I needed it.

I didn't think it contained all of the knowledge a near-ascended being could manage to hold, it might be limited to Merlin's research, but that could benefit me greatly as it would be far less strain on my mind and it would leave me lots of stuff left to learn, and there was little point to life if you had no room to grow.

While the Tok'ra Anise had left my ship to spend time on Atlantis, and was unlikely to return, the human woman called Norina seemed to be settling in well I noticed and Seven of Nine had quickly take the scientist under her wing.

Which was interesting because Seven wasn't the most sociable of people and could be hard to work with. Not because she was bad person, it was just that she'd spent most of her life a borg drone.

Plus recently Seven had discovered that she was at least somewhat into submission and bondage, and had taken to wearing a bodysuit that somehow fitted to her curves even more than the others, and she'd started wearing some sort of collar.

Currently the two women were within one of the many labs we had on board this ship, and when Norina noticed that I had entered the room she rushed over to talk to me.

"Gothic I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for allowing me to study on board your ship" she said.

Yes she'd been very grateful for the opportunity, and had displayed it a few times with sex. I didn't understand her attraction, and wondered if me becoming a more 'evolved human' somehow made me more appealing to women. Something to think about later.

"I also wanted to ask how I'd be rejoining my people later" she then said.

Of course she must have heard about them moving to a planet in the Ida galaxy. I wondered if there were lots of humans in that galaxy and if the ascended Ancients also shielded their existence from the Ori.

"Don't worry my ship can reach that galaxy" I assured the attractive scientist.

I knew that the galaxy Thor called home was called Ida that it was approximately 4 million light years from the Milky Way, and much further than that from the Pegasus Galaxy. Without taxing the engines the trip there would take about two months from Pegasus if we stopped by Earth on the way, but little more than a week if we drew upon the ZPM and taxed the engines. An exact ETA was impossible to guess so that those times might not be right.

"If my ship doesn't have time to make the trip I'll ask the Asgard to take you" I told the woman "They could have you there in no time at all".

Norina thanked me again, and went back to her studies.

(Line Break)

Atlantis. Pegasus Galaxy.

Since there was no rush to 'evolve' me further, and because there were several parties interested in taking the time to study my 'evolution' I'd decided to use my increased intelligence in a productive way that wouldn't step on anyone's toes.

My companions and crew all that their own fields of interest. Seven was the scientist, who was currently working on lots of projects, Tali was the engineer, the one who did most of the work when it came to actually using the technology we spent so much time gathering, Cameron was my bodyguard, and Miranda handled the day to day running of things.

As for the crew, well I could easily replace Jennifer Keller with an EMH (emergency medical hologram) if I so wished I had a program for an early version of the Doctor's program in storage and had forgotten about it, but I hoped to keep Keller as she was cute. As for the others they came and went as they desired.

I was the commander, the team leader, but there was nothing for the team to do right now so I'd begun a project of my own. One that involved gathering a lot of information about the history of this universe.

This information was required as, on a whim more than anything else, I'd decided to write a book which contained the truth. A Book of Origin, if you will, that did actually tell people of their true origins, and could even help guide people on the path to ascension.

So far I'd included a lot of information about how the first humans evolved in far off galaxy. These people, who were the first evolution of humanity, who all lived together as one society and they were on an 'evolutionary' path to Ascension.

A split then occurred among the first humans in this universe, dividing them into two factions: the Ancients (who back then were called the Alterrans), who were secular and science-oriented, and the Ori, who became more religious. It was unknown what they worshipped or why.

The Alterrans had been a people at an advanced stage of Human evolution, or Humans are a primitive form of Alterrans, depending on how you looked at the situation. Both species share the same basic appearance, but there the similarities end. Alterans are what present day Human culture would think of as advanced aliens, and what past Human culture would refer to as 'gods'.

Eventually, the Ori became so extreme in their beliefs that they tried to wipe out the Alterans. Though they considered using their knowledge to defend themselves, that would have involved messing with people's minds on a massive scale using a device called The Ark of Truth, so instead they built a ship and left their galaxy, while the Ori remained behind.

The Alterra traveled across space to eventually settle in the galaxy of Avalona (aka the Milky Way) fleeing persecution at the hands of their brethren, the Ori rather than sticking up for themselves like an entire race of school aged nerds. These exiles eventually evolved into one of the most powerful races ever to inhabit the stars.

The Alterrans were almost totally wiped out by a plague several million years ago, which was possibly the work of the Ori, but life was reseeded in the Milky Way using the device on Dakara, this included Earth and was what led to raise of humanity. It was unknown if the Alterrans intended to create humans on Earth or not.

Merlin might know as he still had some knowledge Ascended beings had, and hopefully the Alterrans had created humans on purpose otherwise many people would be disappointed when they found out that humanity in the Milky Way had just been the result of the Ancients doing some advanced terraforming.

While the remaining Ancients left the Milky Way some had already began ascending according to historical records, and while the records didn't say much about this it was known for a fact that some of the Alterrans had near-ascended abilities. I knew this to be true as an Alterran who remained behind in some form of stasis, had healing abilities.

This might explain why the Ancients who ascended later had to follow the non-interference rule right from the start and didn't use their powers to clean up after themselves, and why they didn't use their powers to wipe out the Wraith, and then back off to allow humans to develop without interference. They would have been forced to follow the rules by those who had ascended so long ago.

One of the more amazing things I'd recently found out was the Lanteans were created by the Alterrans as successors because there were not enough Aterrans left alive after the plague to keep the species going. Which was an issue the remaining Lanteans were dealing with right now.

As the remaining Alterrans, who were all living in Atlantis, which had moved to the Pegasus Galaxy, either died out or ascended, the city and control of the Pegasus galaxy was handed over the Lanteans, who were the chosen successors of the Alterrans.

While the Lanteans were not the Alterrans, they were advanced enough to do things such as establish a stargate network, and seed new life in the Pegasus galaxy, including more primitive versions of the species, humans basically, and help them prosper. This was done on the orders of the last Alterrans.

Like some of the Asurans the Lanteans wanted to match their creators, so achieving ascension became a primary objective for them. So much so, in fact, that they developed a pacifistic attitude that greatly hindered them in their war against the Wraith.

It also explained why the Lanteans never built anything that surpassed Atlantis, they were merely following in the footsteps of their creators and perhaps didn't believe they could surpass them. They might have even been created by Alterrans with limits so that Lanteans couldn't surpass the Alterrans, just like how the Lantenas had built limits into the Asurans.

After their desperate departure from Atlantis 10,000 years ago, the Ancients returned to Earth. Upon their return, the Ancients found Humans in the hunter-gatherer stage of evolution.

The Ancients were unable to restart their empire, so some lived and even bred with the native humans. They also played a role in creating later future civilizations, such as Rome, while others went into isolation and ascended.

Lanteans, or the Ancestors as they were call in this galaxy, had returned to Atlantis, thanks to myself and the Asgard, who I planned to devote a chapter to in my book because of how some of the Asgard influenced human cultures in the Milky Way. I might even mention the Wraith as they were in a sense part human.

While the history of humanity part of the book was somewhat simple to put together, it was the future of the species that had me stumped. For many ascension was the goal, I was more interested in the journey, but I wasn't writing this book for me.

Perhaps I would venture to the cloister, which was a safe haven somewhere in this galaxy for humans who wanted to attempt to ascend, time ran much more quickly within the cloister, so I spent months there learning all about the spiritual side of ascension, and for the rest of the team only mere hours would pass.

Getting out of the cloister shouldn't be an issue was either the locals would ascend and let me out, or I could just use a door to get to the Cosmic Warehouse and then go to the Space Dock and have my Aurora-class there waiting for me.

There was a polite cough from somewhere behind me and I turned away from the terminal I'd been using to come face to face with Doctor Daniel Jackson. I'd met him before, but only briefly as when I'd spent time on Earth I'd been doing technical stuff and hadn't had any time for the kind of stuff Doctor Jackson did.

"Aren't you part of the team dealing with the humans from that game planet?" I asked.

I'd heard that the Tauri were handling that issue as it was there fault for messing with the game in the first place.

"Doctor Weir can handle it" said Doctor Jackson "I'm looking for something in important, and I want your help".

Now he had my attention.

"I think that there might be a city-ship somewhere on Earth" Jackson told me.

Okay now he really had my attention.