Cultrek IV: A New Hope

by ACE Albert

What happens if the United Federation of Planets can realize its true potential? How would other galaxies and organizations be affected? Find out in CULTREK IV: A NEW HOPE, starring the United Culture of People!

2. Chapter 2

CULTREK IV: A NEW HOPE

Standard Disclaimers Apply.

CHAPTER I: The Stage is Set

AUTHORS: ACE Albert, andrewjameswilliams, and F-302 Pilot

Colonel Jack O'Neill, the forty-four year old commander of the StarGate Alliance's Explorer Class Carrier USS Event Horizon and the clone of the original General Jonathan (Jack) O'Neill (now eighty-three years old and retired) was sitting around with his feet propped up on the corner of his desk, musing over just how far the Tau'ri – or more specifically, the United States of America and its few StarGate Alliance partners – had come in the last thirty-nine years.

When the StarGate was first successfully activated in 1994, it was the biggest secret the United States of America had ever had. It was considered as a national treasure, not to be shared with any other nation on Earth. All knowledge gathered as a consequence of use of the StarGate over the years was American property, hard-earned by the lives and toil of American soldiers and scientists.

Despite the realization of the dangers Earth faced and the other national powers and trade blocs on Earth starting to question strange occurrences, the United States chose not to disclose the existence of the StarGate.

Several times America had come close to disclosing the StarGate, but each time the impending disaster was averted, starting with the attack by the Goa'uld Apophis with two Ha'Tak Class Motherships in June 1998.

At the thought of this issue, Colonel O'Neill chuckled. There were times when O'Neill thought that disclosure early on might not have been such a bad thing after all; disclosure would have seriously disrupted the plans of various powerful and hostile factions – including, memorably, the National Intelligence Directorate (NID) – that had tried, repeatedly and sometimes almost successfully, to seize control of StarGate Command over the years. And in O'Neill's book, anything that would significantly hamper the plans of factions such as the NID had got to be a good thing. Additionally, disclosure would have made it easier for Earth to defend itself against the many hostile external threats, most notably the Goa'uld. On the other hand, there were of course downsides to disclosure. Those in charge decided that the upsides and downsides balanced out in such a way that disclosure was unwarranted. The balance had apparently continued to hold over the years, such that even now, in 2033, the existence of the StarGate had still not been disclosed. The Colonel often mused over whether disclosure now would be a good or a bad thing. In the end, the Colonel usually reached the same conclusion: as long as he continued to be one of the defenders of Earth, and – more importantly – as long as he continued to be paid, he didn't really care all that much. After all, it was hardly up to him to decide on the issue. O'Neill again chuckled as he remembered the 'other' O'Neill telling him that it would be sooner than he thought that he would be one of the people having a say in the issue of disclosure.

Tabling his thoughts on the matter for another time, O'Neill returned to his historical musings.

There was a nearly disastrous foothold situation in September 1999 by a previously unknown alien species and an attempted infestation by the Replicators using Thor's flagship in March 2000.

In April 2002 Earth was attacked by the half-Ascended Goa'uld Anubis using an asteroid whose core was comprised largely of naquadah. Anubis struck again that same year when he destroyed the StarGate using an Ancient device off-world.

2002 also marked the United States' secret launch of the Prometheus prototype Battle Cruiser as a test bed for all of the new alien technologies acquired. Plans for three new Daedalus Class Battle Carriers, the USS Daedalus, the USS Odyssey, and the USS Apollo began development.

In March of 2004 Anubis attacked Earth with over thirty ships; this incursion was defeated using the weapons of an Ancient outpost located by SG-1 in Antarctica.

It was March of 2005 that both Anubis and the Replicators were finally eliminated as threats to this galaxy.

Earth's prototype Battle Cruiser, the Prometheus, was destroyed during the Ori's three year incursion into the Milky Way Galaxy. The Ori incursion ended when all extra-galactic Ori vessels retreated back to their home galaxy in a defensive pull-back move, after Daniel Jackson used the sangraal, an Ancient device, to obliterate a third of the entire Ori race and significantly drain the total power available to the Ori before being forcibly stopped by the Orici, Adria, who then destroyed the sangraal. Although the SGC was aware that the Ori were not wiped out and could return later, experts projected that, due to their crushing losses, it would be at least centuries, if not millennia, before the Ori even considered attempting another incursion into the Milky Way Galaxy. Sadly, things had not gone well for Daniel after that. A few months later on an off-world mission against some last fanatical Ori hold-outs, he had been mortally wounded. He had apparently escaped death by Ascending again, but he had not been seen or heard from since, so no one really knew Daniel's true fate after that mission.

At the thought of the Ori, a name suddenly crossed O'Neill's mind: Orlin. O'Neill himself had not been present when the (formerly) Ascended Ancient Orlin descended to Earth to help them find a cure to the Ori plague that was loose on the planet at the time, but he had since heard of the incident many times from Samantha Carter and the 'other' O'Neill. Unlike his clone and many other SGC personnel, O'Neill suspected that Orlin's motives had not been as pure as embarking on a simple mission of mercy to the Tau'ri and by extension the Milky Way Galaxy just out of the goodness of his heart. Sure, the Ascended Ancients were famously complacent, but O'Neill thought that even they could not have failed to see the threat that would be posed to them by the Ascended Ori, if the Ori incursion in the Milky Way Galaxy had succeeded. It was likely, in O'Neill's opinion, that the Ancients, recognizing the threat, decided to 'let an Ancient acting on his/her own will' (actually, assign one of their kind) – which happened to be Orlin – help out against the Ori in some way, lest the Ori incursion succeed and the Ancients themselves become threatened. Still, O'Neill had to concede some measure of grudging respect for Orlin for willing to be the one to help them even though it meant he not only had to 'descend' (technically, de-Ascend) as a mortal human child and would quickly lose all of his memory and knowledge – not just the knowledge that came with being an Ascended being, but all of his knowledge of being an Ancient, even his memory of what race he was. Orlin knew before he ever 'descended' that this would happen, yet even knowing the price he would pay he had still done it. Orlin had been willing to defend his people whatever the cost to himself, an attitude befitting a loyal patriot. O'Neill could identify with that kind of attitude. In any case, the Ascended Ancients were definitely egotistical hypocrites, O'Neill thought. They were supposed to be the 'good guys', but they had evidently decided to allow one of their own kind to be sacrificed in the operation, just so they as a race could continue to strut that (annoying) unaffected, superior attitude.

O'Neill reminisced some more over what his 'other' self had told him about Orlin.

Just a few days after descending, Orlin's desperate efforts to hold on to his Ancient knowledge as long as possible had nearly resulted in his brain becoming irrevocably and significantly damaged. Quick medical tests run on Orlin showed that his neural pathways had begun degenerating rapidly and that the best result he could hope for was to become a severely mentally retarded child – with, of course, none of his life's memories – that would probably have to be institutionalized for life. The worst result was that he could become completely brain-dead or even die outright. By that time, Orlin, despite his best efforts, could no longer be useful: he was dropping things, his mind refused to focus, and his behavior had started becoming erratic – all probably due to his rapidly overloading human brain. After Orlin realized (with more than a little help from SG-1) that there was nothing else he could do, he decided to travel to some distant abandoned Ancient outpost and put himself into stasis in the hope that, sometime in the future, some advanced civilization might discover him and be able to stabilize his mind. The last thing Orlin did before stepping through the StarGate to the Ancient outpost was to apologize for removing and taking with him some of the DHD's crystals, so as to not leave behind any record of where he had dialed to; he explained that the Ancients would not allow the SGC to find the location of the outpost through him, and might act against the SGC if they recovered the address of the outpost from the DHD.

O'Neill snorted. He was a crafty one, was old Orlin. He had used the apology stunt to garner sympathy for himself and to portray himself in a good light at the same time, effectively killing two birds with one stone. The stunt had, indeed, worked well, too well in O'Neill's opinion. The others had actually believed him and thought of his apparent regret as genuine. O'Neill snorted again. He would have thought his clone would have had more sense than that.

Growing a bit bored, O'Neill decided to return to his previous train of thought.

By 2008, the known or projected threats to Earth had diminished so dramatically that the SGC and the Pentagon were nearly certain that no more unexplainable "incidents" in or around Earth would occur anytime soon. As a result, the then President Hayes took disclosure completely off the table.

Using this new period of relative calm, the United States decided to increase its presence in the galaxy and concentrate on building up its infant space fleet.

Armed with advanced technologies gathered from a wide array of advanced alien species the U.S. developed the second generation of ships, with everything from cloaking devices and shields to powerful ion sublight engines to intergalactic hyperdrives, to free standing beaming technology and extremely powerful weapon systems.

The United States of America had fifteen operational Daedalus Class Battle Carriers by 2009. Three of the Battle Carriers, the USS Daedalus, the USS Ceberus and the USS Phoenix, were assigned to the Pegasus Galaxy to protect the Ancient city-ship Atlantis from the Wraith.

The first secret Lunar underground construction yard at Tyco was constructed with the aid of Tok'ra crystal tunnel technology and by 2015 production of the Daedalus Class Battle Carrier gradually increased from three per year to twelve per year.

With construction and expansion efforts non-ceasing, by 2017 the SGA had two additional massive underground Lunar shipyards, located at Copernicus and Kepler. The SGA had also constructed a massive sprawling complex of surface and underground facilities, capable of supporting up to thirty Daedalus Class ships simultaneously, known as Janus Station. Located on and within Saturn's sixth moon, Janus Station's purpose, which it continued to fulfill even now, was to serve as the Sol System's primary combat repair and general refit facility away from the Lunar shipyards.

Between around 2030 and 2033, Janus Station was expanded to include eight additional smaller facilities to manufacture fighters, cargo ships, and shuttles, along with defense satellites and unmanned combat assault vehicles (U.C.A.V.s), making Janus Station the largest single military complex in the Sol System.

By 2033, the Fleet consisted of two hundred and forty two Daedalus Class Battle Carriers and nine Explorer Class variants. Twenty eight Battle Carriers were stationed in the Pegasus Galaxy; the rest of the Fleet was spread across the SGA's sixteen colonies, nearly one hundred off-world mining facilities, and several large long-range military bases.

The current standard Daedalus Class Battle Carrier was over twice the length of the Prometheus prototype and was a lot meaner than most anything the other known races possessed. In fact, the only ship class known to be more powerful than the Daedalus Class was the Asgard's O'Neill Class BattleShip. The Explorer Class variants were basically Daedalus Class Battle Carriers modified with larger hanger bays to handle a greater number and type of shuttles along with redesigned interiors for scientific study and exploration as opposed to strictly military missions. They also carried up to an additional one hundred scientists along with the necessary laboratories and equipment specific to mission parameters. The added space was generated by eliminating the vertical missile silos and the two long range particle weapons (based on the Ancient city-ship Atlantis' defense satellites) that Daedalus Class Battle Carriers possessed.

Nevertheless, despite this drastically reduced offensive capability, the SGA's Explorer Class Carriers were still heavily armed and designed as warships first and foremost, with each ship carrying twenty-four F-302C BlackHawk Space Superiority Fighters. In addition to several scientific shuttles, each Explorer Class Carrier also carried eight medium class all-purpose assault shuttles whose design was based on the Goa'uld Tel'tak scout ship. Depending on the mission, the Explorer Class Carrier could also be outfitted with up to thirty six U.C.A.V.s that could serve any role from long-range reconnaissance to remote-controlled fighter coverage.

Offensively, the Explorer Class Carrier was armed with sixty anti-fighter duel-firing rail guns and eighteen larger gauss cannons, twenty-four focused plasma cannons, one hundred short/medium ranged hyperspace torpedoes and thirty-six extremely powerful ion cannons derived from scavenged and reverse-engineered Tollan ion cannons. Additionally each ship carries a classified amount of high yield naquadria enhanced nuclear warheads in reserve along with a full compliment of Ancient drone weapons.

O'Neill grinned. He always liked thinking about the guns available at hand. He supposed that that was one thing he had in common with his clone. One among many, he silently reminded himself.

Defensively, each Explorer Class Carrier had a nine meter thick hull composed of trinium, carbon, and naquadria. All second- and third-generation Daedalus Class ships (including the Explorer variants) were equipped with modified stealth mode generators based on Ancient technology that, when activated in conjunction with hybrid shields based on Asgard and Ancient technologies, could generate a stealth field even Asgard sensors could not penetrate.

Finally, all Battle Carriers, both the Daedalus and Explorer classes, shared sensor technology developed from Atlantis' long-range sensors, which made sneaking up on them by an enemy nearly impossible.

O'Neill stretched and broke out of his musings to attend to more urgent matters. The SGC had recently put all SGA forces on high alert following the destruction of three Daedalus Class Battle Carriers – in separate locations no less. Each of the three ships had apparently been destroyed so rapidly that they had not had time to advise the SGC of the nature of the event. Analysis of the recovered debris had not yielded any known or putative weapons signatures. Whatever had destroyed these ships had either been some powerful, previously unknown, and probably unpredicted natural phenomenon – a bit doubtful since a natural phenomenon, especially one as exotic and relatively rare as this would have to be, would probably not strike in rapid succession in three distinct star systems light-years apart – or had been an advanced, aggressive enemy with exotic and powerful weaponry completely unknown to the Alliance. Eight of the Alliance's Daedalus Class Battle Carriers formerly stationed in the Pegasus Galaxy had been recalled to the Milky Way Galaxy to enhance their defenses in case the destruction of these three Battle Carriers was caused by a new powerful, advanced enemy.

One thing, O'Neill thought, was an absolute certainty. A serious threat at this time would be most inopportune and unwelcome, but if such a threat was identified as being the cause of the destruction of the three Battle Carriers, the Fleet would likely respond to the unprovoked attacks with an unheard of level of destruction in retaliation. Much of the galaxy had come to respect and even fear the growing might of the Tau'ri, and more often than not potentially hostile aliens were apt to avoid any kind of provocation out of fear of a swift and decisive response. This hard-earned reputation was essential to the success of the SGA thus far, and had to be maintained at all costs. Hence, if a hostile faction was responsible for these unprovoked attacks, reprisal with military force would be essential. The SGA was just a few decades away from having a true empire amongst the stars, and nothing would be allowed to stand in its way.

TBC… in CHAPTER 2: The Pieces Fall Into Place