A/N - Disclosure is here and a small skirmish also happens with several new wrecks circling a certain planet.
o-0-o
Daniel looked at Carter and later at the door in front of them. "He went there on his own?" Daniel asked after a moment. "In front of the whole United Nations?"
"Pretty much yes," she said. "I know that he is an Ascended being with millenia of experience in politics, but that's a bit too much for me."
"I would more fear for the health of the leaders that are negotiating with him," Daniel said and she looked at him. "The Others won't stop him, so he can do all kinds of tricks an Ascended can do, manipulate space, time, matter and whatever else he might need to achieve his goals."
"I hope that it will end well," she said. "He said that he wants at least partial disclosure of the programme, redefinition of the IOA, and more funding to us."
"That will be a very, very bitter pill for them to swallow, not that I mind it."
"The budget will be the biggest issue," she said and Daniel looked at her. "We get around a hundred and fifty billion per year from just the USA and the rest of IOA gives the same amount and most of it is eaten by R&D and new ships."
"And Arkadia is a sinkhole for money," Daniel said. "I spent hours digging through the database and we have thousands of kilometers of corridors and thousands upon thousands of rooms to discover."
Carter was about to respond to it when a light flew towards them before forming an image of Janus. "No need to worry about the whole thing," he said. "I did everything needed and they agreed to everything I suggested and much more."
"Much more?" Daniel asked.
"You will see," Janus said. "Know that you will be able to do what you want and love to do."
o-0-o
Richard Woolsey watched a recording of the negotiations between the UN and Janus with some amusement. "He played them as if they were a bunch of children," Woolsey said with a look at O'Neill and his aide. "Like a bunch of naughty children that thought that they could be the main players."
"Did you expect anything else?" O'Neill asked. "He is an Ascended being and they know how to handle politicians."
"No," Woolsey said and paused. "For once I like that I'm not the one doing negotiations."
Jack nodded and looked at Woolsey. "So what did we actually get?"
"They tripled our budget and ten percent of income generated by the technologies acquired thanks to the programme will be transferred into our budget," Woolsey said and waited for Jack to nod in understanding. "So we will get a steady supply of money that will never end, or not soon in any case."
"How much money we will have?"
"Something like six hundred billion without the sale of technologies, from that? We'll get trillions of dollars," Woolsey said and added with a smile. "A lot will come once they gut out the IOA and fix their accounting issues."
"Accounting issues?"
"Some money had been lost," Woolsey said and paused. "I notified the agencies needed, and as far as I know they just got raided."
"Ah," Jack said. "What about disclosure?"
"Scheduled to happen in two weeks," Woolsey said. "They will help us set up three offworld colonies in the Milky Way as an incentive to get our governments to do this."
O'Neill nodded and looked at his aide. "How soon will the BC-305 and 306 be ready?"
"Prototypes are being finished as we speak," Robert Jackson said and checked his notes. "They were scheduled for the testing to start in three days, but I think it should be postponed to allow our allies to take a look at them."
"I agree," O'Neill said. "Send them coordinates of the yard and ask them to suggest improvements to designs."
"They will most likely request the presence of Colonel Carter or someone else that knows our technology well and knows what can be done and what not," Robert added.
"She can be assigned to it," O'Neill said and Robert nodded.
Woolsey smiled at this exchange, assigning that officer to O'Neill was the best idea ever, he managed to organize the Department and kept track of all the things O'Neill didn't care about. It also prepared a future commander for one of the new bases somewhere in the universe.
o-0-o
Carter looked around the lift as it traveled deeper into the Earth, she had trouble believing that she would stand in the same room as the best ship designer from Asgard and the Alterans. The lift stopped its travel and the doors in front of them opened with a slight hiss, revealing a huge man-made cavern with two dry docks placed in it and catwalks and scaffolding above and inside of them.
Inside of cocoons made out of scaffoldings and various other platforms rested two matte black hulls that shouted technological superiority at everybody that looked at them. The smaller one was roughly two-thirds of the size of BC-304 and it was lacking its hangar bay, in which place was placed an extension of a hull that ended with an Asgard plasma beam at the tip of them. Another feature that distinguished this hull from one of BC-304 was an addition of a pair of short, stubby wings.
"This one is called the BC-305, or Cerberus" she said looking at her companions, she knew Hermiod, but seeing Janus accompany them was a surprise. "We wanted a ship that can have a smaller crew than the 304 and be able to support it in combat. It also comes with a large group of troops we train for space combat and boarding of other ships."
"What's the armament of the ship?" Hermiod asked.
Carter walked to a console placed in the corner and input into it several strings of commands after which on a large screen appeared very detailed schematics of the ship. "Two plasma beams developed by the Asgard," she said. "And thirty-two railgun mounts."
"A good design, but not the most efficient," Janus said and looked at Hermiod. "I was thinking about four triple ion guns of your design."
Hermiod was silent for a moment before nodding in agreement. "I think it would be wise to replace the forward mounted railguns with them."
"What about power?" Carter asked. "We lack in this department and there are limits to which we can refine naquadah."
"A neutrino-ion power plant would solve those problems, and we provided you with the schematics of it," Hermiod said. "We possibly can provide you with several of them, but the Council needs to agree."
"That would be nice," Carter said.
"I'm sure that the Council will approve the request," Janus said and Hermiod bowed his head. "Anyways, those matters aside it is a solid design, especially considering the data we have received earlier. However we didn't receive any data about the ship in the next dock."
"It was an ever more buried secret than Cerberus," she said walking down the catwalk and towards the hull. "BC-306, a ship we designed as a counter to Hives and to serve as a command ship."
She stopped in the middle of the catwalk and gazed at the hull below, it was over fifteen hundred meters long and a very unusual thing compared to previous design was that fighter bays and hull expanding outwards weren't at the end of the hull, instead they were in two-thirds of its length. The end of the hull was occupied by the engines and parts of power supply, however not all of it was placed there, a sizeable portion was located in the middle and massive thrusters were placed at the ends of the hangar bays.
"It has two bridges, a dedicated command center for a task force commander," she said turning to look at them. "In terms of armament, sixteen plasma beams, thirty-two ion cannons, something like a hundred railguns and three blocks of VLS cells giving it total of a hundred and eight ready to fire missiles."
Janus and Hermiod nodded before all of them went to reviewing the schematics and adding to them improvements to be implemented, a list of which very quickly reached hundreds of positions.
o-0-o
Slaviash sat on the command throne of his Ha'tak and watched as his fleet charged through hyperspace, each second it traveled thousands of light years and only moments separated it from leaving hyperspace. Then the moment of transfer came and his fleet left hyperspace, in real space it appeared directly above Mars and as he looked at the plot he felt a ball of bile form in his throat.
"Hundreds of ships around us," one of his people reported. "Origin unknown, but data stolen by our agents from Tau'ri suggests they are of Ancient design."
"They were supposed to be gone from this galaxy," Slaviash said and looked at the plot on which now were visible hundreds of sources, some the size of moons or asteroids and some smaller. Yet all of them was generating so much energy that sensors were unable to get an accurate reading. "Arm weapons systems and charge shields."
"I suggest that you don't do it," someone said and when he looked in that direction he saw a male walk towards him. "My kin doesn't like when someone interrupts the colonization of a planet."
"What will you do to me?" Slaviash asked.
"I? Nothing," the stranger said and smirked. "My friends around will obliterate this little fleet before it can fire a single volley. So, stay or retreat unharmed by us."
Slaviash narrowed his eyes and smirked. "You are here alone and without any guards," he said and motioned at his bodyguards. "Kill him and throw the body outside."
His bodyguards nodded and aimed their guns at the stranger before unleashing a hail of gunfire that passed right through the stranger and slammed into the wall behind him. However that was not the thing that surprised Slaviash. The stranger looked at the soldiers surrounding him and snapped his fingers and a massive wave of power came out of nowhere. They were lifted into the air and hurled at the walls, their bones breaking upon impact and just limp bodies landing on the floor.
"So you chose death," the stranger said and disappeared in a flash of bright, blinding light.
For a moment there was only silence as everybody that was left alive tried to get over what just had happened. It came to an abrupt end the moment alarms started to howl and chirp. "My Lord, they are targeting us," one of the men reported. "Hundreds of ships and our hyperdrive is disabled."
Slaviash looked around in fear before a large window in front of his throne saw beams of light. He knew that it was his and his detachment's end. His dreams of power and influence ended with a single, swift cut, one that came in the form of a searing beam of energy. One burned through the shields of his flagship, swiftly followed by meters thick outer plating, as well as even more of the internal structures before finally slamming into his throne room from below.
o-0-o
Agrippa stroked his beard as he contemplated the plot, this attack was a highly unsuspected and unpleasant surprise and it happened in the worst possible moment. One where most of his heavy ships were busy, protecting transport ships that were tucked in right outside of local star's corona. He had firepower he needed to blow them to pieces, but it wasn't a very comfortable margin, he looked to the side and nodded at Janus who stood there. "Would you mind asking them to leave us alone and mind their business elsewhere?" Agrippa asked, turning to look at his mentor in the field of science and politics.
Janus nodded and without a single word, he was simply gone.
Agrippa acknowledged that fact and focused on the plot. "All capital ships will target their capital ships and our escort will take out those smaller sources," he said and paused. "Don't waste drones on them, just normal armament."
He noticed nods and mutterings that his orders were understood and leaned back in his chair, now it was just a matter of waiting and seeing if their guests would listen or not. He felt energy gather and swirl in one place before forming a humanoid shape. "How did it go?"
"As well as it could go," Janus said. "They attacked me and the leader wanted me dead."
"Very well," Agrippa grimly said and looked at his staff. "Fire at will."
The moment he gave the order hundreds of weapon mounts came alive and targeted the enemy fleet, before unleashing volleys of energy beams that started to destroy the whole fleet that came here. He watched in silence as enemy ships disappeared from the plot one by one, fiery explosions in space signs of the place where they died.
"All enemy ships destroyed," one of crewman reported and he nodded in understanding.
"That was quick," Agrippa said and glanced at Janus. "Explain to our allies that we had some unwanted guests."
Janus nodded and disappeared, leaving him to plan the next move and to ensure that this wouldn't happen again any time soon. One such surprise was enough for his pride and he wouldn't survive the next one.
o-0-o
O'Neill looked around the Oval Office and could tell that everybody was as antsy about it as he was, but then, the disclosure was supposed to happen in a couple of hours and nobody was really sure how would it play out. Some simulations predicted massive riots and social unrest, while other predicted that it would be accepted more or less normally and society wouldn't fall apart.
"Is everything ready?" The president asked and that snapped O'Neill out of his musings.
"Yes, Mr President," O'Neill said. "Our allies have been notified and they promised to leave us alone for the next few hours and let us explain things at our own pace."
O'Neill felt some tensions leave the room at those news, they didn't want Asgard or the Ancients interrupt them when they would be trying to deal with society whose reaction could range from cold fury to acceptance.
Several hours later he sat in front of a TV in his office and watched as a transmission started, he was a little surprised by the choice of the place, but after a moment smiled when he saw blastdoor behind the President, hiding the chamber of the Stargate. It was probably the best place for it, short of having the Stargate behind.
"My fellow Americans," the President started. "I speak to you from a place where many of our citizens gave their lives to protect the country and, by extension, the world. They did it without the knowledge of the wider society, but now it is time for that knowledge to be revealed to the world. Behind me is the object that caused those secrets, a Stargate: a device that allows us to travel to other worlds without a need for flight in the vacuum of space."
O'Neill noticed the blastdoor being retracted and at the same time he glanced at displays that showed the news stations of other countries and nodded when he saw various other leaders speak about the same thing.
"We hid this knowledge as we weren't sure how the society would react, but now we think that it is wise to reveal it. During the past fifteen years we met various races, some of them hostile, yet most of them friendly and willing to trade and create diplomatic relations. They shared technology with us that we used to protect ourselves from various threats and now it will be available to everybody. We also open the whole Programme to anybody that's able to pass our tests and is eager to explore the unknown and defend humanity and our homeworld.
"At the same time as I talk to you, the leaders of other countries share this knowledge with their citizens and I want to assure you that this is not a hoax and that we stand united about this. No matter our current goals, we all want to have peace and protect the planet from threats that wish us harm."
O'Neill smiled and leaned back in his chair, the next few weeks were going to be busy, extremely busy, and would exhaust him and most of his staff. Even with those things, he knew that the future looked bright and they were safe.
o-0-o
A/N:
Following this will be a time skip as I don't plan on dragging the story with descriptions of things moved, built and researched.
Ships:
BC-305 "Cerberus" - using naval classes of ships it would be a light cruiser, generally designed to accompany capital ships and take out those little, small, annoying shits that are dangerous, but too small for a capital ship to blast them out of the sky. Also marines come handy as boarding is always a decent tactic.
BC-306 - typical heavy capital ship that can trade blows with anybody and everybody it comes across, expensive, takes a lot to construct, huge and manpower hungry, but if you want something stopped, it will do it. Also it isn't as dependant as 304 on plasma beams as it has teeth to do it the boring way and chew through the hull with railguns. Suggestions for a name are open, I didn't quite decide so you can suggest names.
Reviews:
chloe - It wasn't the whole Alliance, just the Ancients settled here, Asgard is happily expanding in Andromeda, while the other two elsewhere. Heliopolis is a meeting place for all, but not much else. Also frankly speaking, settling in Sol is safer for all. It gives anybody attacking it more targets and with more parties here, more ships can be kept inside.
Guest - Someone could steal Ancient tech, true, but how would they be able to know where Destiny is and how to get it not to jump into FTL and instead let them catch it with tractors and take on a trip.