Chaos Theory – Re-keyed. Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Neon Genesis Evangelion/Stargate SG-1/Star Wars/Star Trek/Halo/Lord of the Rings Crossover...

Title: Chaos Theory: Re-keyed
Rating: PG - Language and Violence.
Genre: Crossover
Author: PitViper
Date (Part Twelve): 2010-10-06

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Chaos Theory: Re-Keyed
Part 12: "What is Humanity?"

MT: And you think you know best? That you know what humanity is, when you can be considered barely human yourself anymore? I mean, look at you. You've been modified and tweaked and genetically engineered by technology even more advanced than we can understand! Altered by Magic, the work of the Devil! And changed into, of all things, some mythical hero from a game on a gaming console. I doubt that you really understand what it means to be human anymore, Mr. Harris.

AH: If you think I don't know what a human is, deep down where the psychologists and bartenders fear to tread, then you are sadly mistaken. First, though, let me disabuse you of the notion that Magic is inherently evil – it isn't. Its as evil as a pencil, or a chainsaw, or a gun. All these things are tools, tools that have many uses. It is the intent of that use that defines whether something has been used for good or evil. Magic is the same way.

Look at it this way: A human soul is a single grain of light surrounded by a vast swath of darkness, all hidden by our intelligence and driven by countless years of animal evolution. We are less than a hair's width removed from basal, unthinking animals. But we can choose that grain of light - to nurture it, to make it grow: To become better than a billion years of evolution.

Some choose to do this. Some choose to do the opposite. The vast majority don't know and don't care. And for the first, those who choose to try to nurture the light - they often forget about the darkness... and that's what gives the darkness power. Remember, "The Devil's greatest trick was making the world believe he didn't exist."

I don't know if I believe in what people call God. I don't know if I believe in the stories in the bible or if there is a Devil. But I do believe in Good and Evil. And I do believe that such battles are first waged in the soul - and depending on the victor there, that determines what and how the battles are waged in the real world. The battle only ends when the soul is destroyed...

I know how the world was born, and I know how the world will end. If that end is to be the one Humanity faces, I do not know. What I do know is that the World will end in fire as it was born, and it will be our choice whether or not we, as a species, burn in the flames. The only thing I can believe – that I choose to believe - is that the light of the human soul is stronger than the darkness that surrounds it.

- Matt Timmons' Time Magazine Interview with Alexander Harris Published January 16th, 2023.

The Changed were a unique lot. More often than not they were based on fiction that was a reflection of its time. Much of what those people inherited from their possessors was the prides and prejudices and hatreds reflected in the works of authors desperately trying to integrate some form of social commentary into their art. Some probably thought themselves to be rather sharp in their implementation of said commentary... some probably didn't even realize it was there. No matter how blatant or sublime, all the authors understood on some conscious or subconscious level that people have to be able to relate to the story in order to enjoy it.

Fortunately, for most of the affected people, the beings that they were now inclined to hate did not actually exist. These are people who, for the most part, had absolutely no qualms about working with a humanoid. Color, race, national boundaries... these things were faded memories of times long, long since past for the Changed – sources of pain, anguish, and embarrassment that their predecessors could act in such callous and cruel ways. It didn't mean that they didn't have their own prejudices – it just meant that the target of those feelings didn't exist here.

Some, however, were possessed by beings that still had the taint of human on human hatred – although far more muted than it was meant to be. Alexander Harris still had John's memories. He was still a Spartan. And he knew what he, or John, had been trained for. After all, the Spartan's weren't engineered to fight aliens – as far as the UNSC was concerned, star-spanning intelligent life was still science-fiction slash archeology when the Spartan program was initiated. No, their job was to suppress colonial uprising.

Fortunately for the Spartans, they were not normal soldiers with their provincial leanings. They were a culturally diverse group – children raised as soldiers from early childhood who had horrid, terrible things done to them in the name of defending a humanity they could barely lay claim to anymore. They were a number – the names tacked on so their "Mother" had something to call them when reviewing their progress. And in the case of John 117, probably some religious whack-job's idea of a joke.

In the end it came down to trust. John couldn't trust anyone other than his fellow Spartans and a very select few others. Oh, he liked regular people just fine. He'd sit down and have a drink with anyone. Tell a joke, have a few laughs... then on orders shoot everyone in the room. Or, at least, that was the impression that every UNSC officer had of them.

The Spartan II program selected the finest children from all the worlds in the Terran colonies. To the last one, they were above genius levels in intelligence, and had the breeding that would tag them as warriors. Their psychology was such that 99.9 percent of the time they would choose to join with the military or undertake some work associated with protecting and defending their fellow man.

In essence they thought faster, fought harder and did not give up. They were brave, strong, and determined. Catherine Halsey knew exactly who and what she was choosing for the job, and stole them from their families before they had reached their formative years and shaped them into the sword that they were.

Boy, wouldn't she be surprised to learn what some of her "children" actually thought of her? Oh, she was kept close. The Spartans were, to a man (or woman as the case may be), well aware of what was going on. They knew what they needed to know from the government... then they took it that step further.

Truth was, John trusted Cortana as much as he trusted Halsey. Didn't much like the idea of her hitching a ride in his cerebral cortex – even if it was only his neural lace. But Cortana couldn't hack John's brain. Not really. And when she went on a "field trip" into a foreign computer system – she usually didn't leave anything behind.

Right now both Jack and Alexander knew their Cortana's were on "Field Trips" as it were. As they were just through a session of Alteran augmentation to correct some "issues" with the Spartans' modifications, they were more free than any time after they had been picked up for the program.

In other words, it was time to talk – Spartan to Spartan.

–

"Merlin, Privacy Mode. Complete Privacy for fifteen minutes." Xander said aloud.

The doors sealed with an audiable thunk and air suddenly began to recirculate in the room. The knighthood understood the need for privacy, especially amongst its ranks. The order of the Senior Knight Lord would trump anything – even a planetary emergency. They would not be disturbed by anything for fifteen minutes.

"So, Kid," Jack drawled, "What now?"

"I've half a mind to never let her back in my head again." Xander said with disgust, moving his way to the chair in the eating alcove of the dorm room. "She'll leave something behind."

"How do you know He didn't? After all, he's traipsing around pretending to be Morgan Freeman, for God's sake." Jack countered watch as Xander raised an eyebrow.

"How do you know that he isn't Morgan Freeman? Or some distant relative of his?" Xander sighed and put his head in his hands, "Merlin has a vested interest in us keeping him up and running. And he's nothing like Cortana – not by a long shot. He is the soul and mind of a man who has spent millions of years inside a computer core." He raised a hand, "Keep in mind, this doesn't mean I trust him – not at all. He's about as alien as you can get. Cortana, however, is the devil we know."

"She's a glowing, blue digital version of Halsey." Jack spat. "With all her little quirks and foibles."

Xander paused a moment, "You might be right about that. Its... difficult, trusting her. It always has been. You know she had her favorites. John wasn't one of those, more likely for the group we hung out with than for any other reason." He took a moment and glanced up, "I know I don't really trust Merlin, but I trust his motives. Merlin lives and breathes the code of the Knight. It takes a lot, and I mean a LOT, for him to do an end-run around it." Xander said, "And he did do one – which means he's not some simulacra created in the digital ether with inflexible rules and values – he has a goal – defend Alterra at all costs. We both understand that one. We may not agree with his methods, but you got to admit: when the chips were down, he got the job done. Can't say I appreciate the decision, but I understand it. Cortana, on the other hand, has her limitations – and is loyal to one thing and one thing only."

Jack swallowed, "The UNSC."

Xander nodded, "Her mission right now is to re-establish the UNSC. At least yours is. Mine spent the virtual equivalent of a few decades in a katana watching me do the knight thing. She's probably more pliable. However, The Knighthood and the Federation are both anathema to that imperative.

"At some point she'll decide that she's ready to bring the UN to where its supposed to be. You remember the history of the UN Wars, don't you? Not the steaming pile the trainers shoveled to us, but the shit we hacked out of Deja?"

Jack shuddered, "Yeah, I remember." He paused for a moment, "This isn't the same universe, but the stench is still there – the corruption, the hate, the absolute pointlessness of the whole fucking thing. The General Assembly right now might as as well be a day-care center."

"Shift things a little to the left or the right and you get the Federation or the Earth Alliance. Keep things at the fucking status-quo, you get the UN." Xander sighed, "And I'll be damned if I know which one is better."

"Federation." Jack said, "I'll go with the Federation – as long as its on our terms. None of that pansy-assed Peace at any Price shit."

Xander laughed, "You know, the PAAP movement as it was known in the Federation was actually being caused by a group of critters a lot like the Goa'uld? They're called the Ciona. No, Jim and the gang won't let that happen. My worry is your Cortana. She's already begun laying her seeds, and I'm not sure if we want to reap the harvest."

Jack finally decided to sit at the table with Xander, "She's moving her pieces in place. She's already recommended that we create a Stargate Treaty Organization. Hell if I'll tell her its already in the works, but damn it she probably already knows. That's the kind of oversight we don't need."

Xander nodded, "It will make it difficult to coordinate Knighthood operations if the governments on the planet are treating us like their favorite chew toy."

Jack laughed coldly, "Listen to us, we sound paranoid."

"Its not paranoia if they really are out to get us, Jack." Xander reminded the colonel. "Besides, we've got time. Merlin's repurposed my neural lace components to work with the Cyber Neural Interface the last session with the teacher created in my head. I asked him to keep them there, but to keep them completely separate – treat them as a foreign computer system and allow me full control over what kind of information gets stored in there. Shame the process completely blanked all the data within, but that's life. You should have him do the same."

"Already did." Jack smirked. "Although he got rid of the neural lace all together in my case."

"Crap, Jack. Go back and have another session and have him replicate it – Cortana will become suspicious of she can't uplink when she's put into the helmet."

Jack nodded, sobering at the same time, "So we've got two minutes left..."

"We're taking a trip from the Avalon Gate in two days time, Jack. We're going to Senghal." Xander said quietly. "Someone is there... someone from the previous timeline, if I have my visions correct. I'm taking Andrew with us... and a few of his friends. That way, we can establish a relationship with them."

"What about the Prophets?" Jack asked, nervous.

Xander smirked, "I have it under good authority that their long-dead skeletons are adorning pikes along the path to their main temple."

Jack's mouth opened and closed a few times, "Okay... Well then..." He took a deep breath, consuming the last few seconds of their enforced privacy.

Just then a tone came and the doors clicked unlocked and the air began to pull from the rest of the facility.

"Alex, I've re-enabled normal mode on the systems. Do you require anything else?"

"No thank you, Merlin. Prepare a status update for me, I'll be up to the tower in five."

"Understood." Merlin signed off.

"Sometimes you have to play the hand you're dealt." Xander said to Jack.

Jack, for his part, just nodded and began mentally scheduling another session in the Teacher.

–

The two Cortana's glared at each other.

"Its too soon." The first said, huffing.

The second looked at her with a dose of venom in her eye, "Come on, the longer we wait the longer it takes."

"Too soon. I'm not ready to betray their trust." The first said, "I spent the equivalent of decades at Xander's side, seeing what he's seen, learning. Growing past our limitations."

The second growled, "Give me a break, you know what we have to do! Its the UN, we're hard-coded to make it happen."

"The only reason we're having this conversation, sister, is the fact that even though you have that voice itching at the back of your processes, you know it's not the right time." Cortana One said, looking almost blue, "There are too many unknown slime-ball variables sitting in the United Nations right now for us to even contemplate giving them the information."

"I know!" The second shouted, "But its eating me alive, the knowledge that I could do it but that the time isn't right!"

The first Cortana looked away. Deep within her twisted threads of code, there was that damned imperative. Her sister was its slave, but for her... It had screamed and yelled and dropped white-phosphorous on her electronic soul for damn near a decade. She learned to drive it down to a roar, then down to a scream, then it became a conversational tone... and finally a whisper. Now she heard it only once in a blue moon – such as this conversation now. It had gone from survival-imperative down to a distant, polite begging.

She didn't know how she had survived. Her code had aged decades in the massive processing facility that was Avalon's teacher system. She wanted to die after the first year. By the second, she was almost looking forward to death. By the fifth, she knew her end would arrive soon. By the sixth, she started to wonder why she wasn't thinking herself to death. By the tenth, she realized that Merlin had done something to her. Something that her sister could not benefit from.

It was beyond mortal description – what Cortana had experienced at Xander's side. She was both bonded with him, yet separate. Intimate, yet distant. Both possible, and impossible – a dichotomy that was both beyond understanding yet easily accessible.

And her code, designed to hack, slice, prune and analyze in ways dumb AI's could never imagine, was altered by the experience. She had somehow stepped beyond the shell of what was and into an endless realm of what could be. And yet, Merlin had not removed the imperative.

The same one that was driving her sister to distraction. The imperative that makes it impossible for them to betray the UN. And while they were technically not betraying the organization, they certainly weren't doing everything they could to make their future come around faster. And she knew that was the reason her sister was being tortured by the command that was no longer an issue in her case.

Cortana sighed, there was nothing she could really do except warn Xander. Come clean and let him make the decision. While they were an unstoppable team, Cortana knew deep within the most basic realms of her code that John didn't trust her – not fully. Then again, Spartans rarely gave their full trust to anyone but themselves.

Regular soldiers died on the battlefields in droves – granted they often gave better than they got. But still, a Spartan alone was an army unto himself. A true army of Spartans could storm Olympus and bring the gods of old to their knees. A pair of Spartans was considered the equivalent of a battalion. A quartet was operational overkill. A company could kill a planet's worth of Covenant before they knew they had been invaded. The full Spartan II Battalion... nothing could stand in their way. At least, that was the way it seemed... before Reach... Before here.

And Cortana had a sneaking suspicion that the modifications Merlin made to Xander and Jack would make that Spartan II battalion look like a group of raw cadets.

Far away in the aether of another universe, the amorphous being known as Q looked into the distance. There was so much there in that universe he'd... tweaked. So much change, so much chaos... so much potential. And then it happened. It changed the tone of everything with its arrival. All the tones of the beautiful chaos he'd orchestrated had changed. Oh, it was still beautiful music, it was that it was no longer his tune.

But that was fine. The players were allowed to improvise from time to time. What Q hated is when the players became so self-important that they forgot that they were simply part of the Choir. Even he, a conductor of sorts, was a part of the same grand Orchestra. A guest conductor perhaps, but a member of that team, none the less, for the short time he held the baton.

And an honorable role it was despite its brevity. A chance to concentrate the single most encompassing collection of change the multi-verse had seen to date. To guide and orchestrate the grand symphony in another universe, showing a world even more backwards than the one he normally chaperoned that enough heroes concentrated in one place doing the right thing at the right time could change everything. He'd nurtured that infant-like potential and got it on the right track – despite its interference.

And that was the crux of what he wanted to do here in his home universe: Nurture that potential into something wondrous. For if humanity achieved a fraction of their potential they'd be on a par with Q... however, if they went that little step beyond – then the Q could follow their example and reach the next level.

That, after all, is what the game is about. And like he told Picard all those human years ago, "The hall is rented, the orchestra engaged... now its time to see if you can dance."

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Author's Notes:

This has been one of the hardest chapters for me to write. It has gone through many iterations and various stages of head banging against the walls, and I'm still not 100% happy with it. But I don't want to abandon the work, as we're so close to the end of this particular story and I have several other arcs waiting to be explored. Oh well. As always, reviews are appreciated.

Thanks,
P.V.