The Star Gate Program (Hetalia/Stargate SG1 X-Over)

Author: Ashynarr

Summary: It was the discovery of the century. A devise older than human civilization, capable of transporting people across the galaxy in an instant. But things have a way of quickly becoming complicated, pushing America and others to their limits as they find themselves embroiled in galactic politics and intrigue throughout the stars.

Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine. Stargate isn't mine.

Warning: Alterations of the Stargate timeline/canon and Hetalia canon

[Inspired by Stargate Reopened; I recommend reading it if you have the time.]

[Chapter 31]

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Sam glanced over the documents in her hand as she made her way towards General Hammond's office, making sure she hadn't missed something in the R&D reports she'd collected from the rest of the team. Sure, she wasn't officially part of R&D since her main job was the delicate reprogramming and improvement of the Stargate systems, but she was in there enough to help tinker with the energy staves and write some notes and ideas to go along with the report.

(It was a bit embarrassing, but not unexpected, that she was one of only two to not already be submitting designs that looked suspiciously like the blasters or phasers from Star Wars or Star Trek respectively.)

She sighed, grateful that this was the last thing she had to do before she was allowed to grab dinner and retreat to her onbase cot. She wouldn't be seeing her above-ground flat for at least another week, but the cot was comfortable enough that she could get rest, which was all that really mattered.

In full honesty, she couldn't imagine a better life than what she had right now. She was at the forefront of a new frontier, playing with technology so far beyond comprehension that she knew even the combined efforts of herself and Dr. McKay wouldn't come close to cracking all the mysteries and secrets behind the gate system, much less make a dent in the data from Heliopolis. It was a giddying experience being at the beginning of history, and she felt more fulfilled than NASA would have ever provided.

(Not that that wouldn't have been her second choice if the Stargate had never been recovered, but in her heart she already knew it would have never been the same sort of thrill she got whenever she saw the wormhole inside the ring form so violently only to settle into its mesmerising pool.)

Now if only there was a way to break that idea to her father gently, without breaking the secrecy behind the entire thing…

Sam blinked out of her thoughts as she bumped into someone, the grumbling 'sorry' from the other person enough to clue her in as to who it was even before she turned to them with a grin. "Hey, Teryl."

"Hey Sam," The doctor smiled back, though her was a tension around her eyes that dimmed Sam's own.

"Are you okay?" She asked her friend, closing the folder in her hands. "You look stressed."

"Just a headache," Her friend promised. "I think I had too much coffee today, and it's just catching up to me now."

"We've all been working hard over the past few weeks," Sam agreed, resting a hand on Teryl's shoulder briefly. "Hopefully some aspirin and rest will help."

"So do I; I'm heading to the infirmary now to get some before I get something to eat, so that it's kicked in by the time I crawl into bed."

Sam laughed softly. "I'm probably going to do the same after I report to the General. You wanna catch up more tomorrow before our shifts start?"

Teryl smiled, some of the tension in her body loosening. "I'd love that, Sam; meet you in the cafeteria at eight?"

"It's a date."

The captain watched her friend continue down the hall to the infirmary for a moment before turning back to her own task. Thankfully the General's office wasn't much farther, the guard there announcing her to the two inside before waving her in.

Colonel O'Neill nodded his head in greeting, which she returned with a brief salute to both men.

"I've brought all the reports from R&D, sir, along with their requests."

"Already planning their ray guns?" The colonel asked, drawing a brief grin from Sam and the General before it settled.

"There's seventeen experimental models awaiting approval for development so far, sir," She reported casually, holding back most of the smile in response to the grin on the colonel's own.

"I believe a few people will need to see the papers before anything is approved, but I applaud the initiative," General Hammond replied, accepting the folders from her and starting to page through them.

"Of course, sir," Sam agreed easily. "As well, the team's main discovery with the armor is that it's an alloy whose main ingredient is nothing found on Earth. It's not the same material as the Stargate exactly, but we believe it has a similar chemical element or two to it that will likely be found in the mines on Abydos."

"Access to the mines is already being negotiated with the locals; they're willing to let us do most of the work, but they still want to watch us with our own equipment. The material will initially be tested for volatility on Abydos, so as to ascertain what containment and transportation procedures are necessary, but R&D, as well as Area 51 and the other organizations bookmarked for access, will likely see some of it on Earth within a few months."

Sam nodded, figuring that would be the case. She wasn't sure whether the team assigned to the initial testing was lucky or not; it would likely depend on whether there ended up being an accident during the early phases of testing.

"Will the weapons need that material to work?" Colonel O'Neill asked, having so far resisted the urge to step over to the desk and examine the paperwork himself.

"The current designs aren't relying on it, as we don't know the substance's full properties yet," She replied. "I'm sure once we know how it'll react when focusing light and high temperatures, it'll find its way into them somehow."

"As long as it doesn't make them blow up," The colonel quipped.

"That would be an issue, yes," The general nodded, looking back down to the sheets before looking up to her. "You said that the armor shares some elements with the Stargate?"

"It has the same heavy elements; 138, 142, and 145. The structures and concentrations of them in relation to more common substances like carbon or silicon is different, but if the mine material is rich in those, it could be a component in the creation of both."

"I doubt we'll be creating new Stargates anytime soon, but it might be worth looking into at some point."

"Of course, sir."

The general closed the folder again, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his desk. "Speaking of that, how is progress on finding other stable addresses?"

"Not good, sir," She replied with a wince. "I'm sure that the stellar drift algorithms are working fine, but I think we simply don't have enough power."

"We have four generators powering it, as well as four backup generators in case the first four stop working."

"I know sir, but that only gets us out to a maximum limit of five hundred light years. We haven't had luck finding other worlds within that range, though I and the rest of my team estimate there should be around nineteen hundred gates we can access from Earth."

"Nineteen hundred?" Hammond's eyebrows went up, as well as the colonel's.

"There are approximately two million stars within five hundred light years; even assuming there's only one stargate per one thousand star systems - possibly chosen for worlds that can support human or human-friendly life - that's still an upper bound of two thousand gates within range. Accounting for whatever damages might have happened to same gates since they were created, we came to a rough estimate of nineteen hundred gates that should theoretically be accessible to us right now."

Both men remained silent for a long moment, likely marvelling over the idea that even with their limitations they had that many worlds available to them. Sam simply smiled; the calculations for all of that had been challenging, but at the same time satisfying.

"How many gates would you estimate for the galaxy as a whole, then?" Colonel O'Neill asked, turning back to her with wide eyes.

"Around three hundred million at most," She replied instantly.

"Are there even that many addresses available?" The general asked.

"If every address has to be comprised of six unique symbols, not accounting for the home point, then there are about two billion possible addresses to choose from. Even with supercomputers calculating the most likely addresses to work, that's still only a nine in ten million chance of actually finding a functional address at random."

The colonel whistled at the numbers. "What're the chances with the fancy collection of addresses from Heliopolis?"

Sam smiled. "We think the gate there is powered by something that gives it a much longer range, so most of those are still far outside of our reach for now. Still, since all of those are valid addresses as far as we're aware, it's upped the chances to around six in a million."

"So what you're saying is that we need better generators," The general finally decided once he'd wrapped his head around those numbers.

"That would help sir, but I don't think just adding on another dozen will help much. I'm fairly sure the gates can use almost any energy source available, but the more potent they are, the better the range, since the initial burst of energy is what creates the wormhole. We'd need a fission generator to get the energy needed for a significant increase at the least, barring future discoveries of more potent fuels."

"I see," General Hammond replied, sighing as he closed his eyes. "I'll see if we can get the Heliopolis team to look through the archives for a better fuel source, as well as a generator that can handle the higher output from it."

"Thank you sir," Sam replied with a salute. "If we happen to find anything-"

The alarms went off about then, startling all three of them before they let themselves settle into battle ready mindsets. Worries over the gate could come later.

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AN: Yeah, I checked the numbers so all of that is pretty accurate, at least in terms of star numbers and distribution. Thankfully I didn't have to actually calculate the number of stars within five hundred lightyears of us because others have already done the calculations for me!

(For those curious, the actual number of stars in range is about 1.875 million, which would have the upper bound be around 1875 gates with Sam's calculations. That's not including stuff like brown dwarves or anything, just main sequence stars and the like.)

As things stand, 300 million gates is a bit much to actually have around the galaxy, even with the ancients having close to 50 million years in the galaxy to colonize and build the gates and such. Since my friend pointed out that some of the material could be hard to get, I'm bumping down the numbers by a factor of a hundred, which has the Milky Way holding around three million gates in total. That bumps the number of gates within the Earth Range Bubble to nineteen, which seems a lot more manageable, though harder to actually find with the millions of options available.