DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, Stargate: SG-1, Star Trek, or any of the real quantum physics and science in this story, the characters, plots, or stories from those series, but I do own my own characters, plot, and story.
A/N: Oops, in the previous chapter apparently I incorporated Daniel Jackson going on the talk show circuit during the period he was "dead / ascended." So, once again oops; nothing to see here, move along...
Harry Potter and the Cochran Effect - Chapter 8
By mid 2003, Daniel Jackson descended and was discovered by SG-1, while Jonas Quinn left SG-1 for good, to return to Langara to help rebuild his home world.
Following those events, Harry, Hermione, Susan, and other leaders met with Dumbledore and the ICW's Ministerial Committee (UK, US, France, Russia, and China's Ministers for Magic, mirroring the muggle world).
"General Potter, can you please brief us on the ramifications of this new power Anubis, and what his being ascended and partially descended means?" Dumbledore asked.
"I will tell you what we know, which at this point is limited. Harry started. We of course know essentially what the IOA knows, having shadowed their mission reports and intelligence findings over the years even before our alliance.
However, they appear to have only recently put enough pieces together to confirm some of their own guesses. First, we know that the Goa'uld obtained their technology by reverse engineering artifacts over a period of twenty thousand years, leftover from a far more ancient civilization that goes back millions of years.
The IOA and most of the other species we have encountered in the galaxy simply refer to that civilization as the Ancients or the Gate builders. They and then we learned more when an Ancient named Oma Desala, whom Doctor Jackson reported was known to history as 'Mother Nature,' aided Doctor Daniel Jackson of the SGC in ascending himself when he died from the radiation poisoning he received on a mission to Langara. Many eyebrows raised at that reference, 'Mother Nature?' a muggle myth? They wondered.
Much of the knowledge or confirmation of previous suspicions came far later based on bits and pieces of scattered reports of the ascended Daniel Jackson communicating with his old team members. Then apparently, he broke some kind of 'ascended beings' rule about non-interference on our plane of existence when he tried to fight Anubis himself using his ascended powers during the battle for Abydos. Therefore, the 'other Ascended' who Jackson simply refers to as 'the others,' descended him back to mortal form, essentially resurrecting him.
Initially he came back to life with no memories of his past life or his life as an ascended being, but gradually his mortal memories came back to him, along with a growing understanding of the nature of the ascended and the Ancients. Although, apparently much of his memory of being ascended and most of what he learned as one of them is suppressed or erased. He has shown moments of clarity from time to time when bits of that memory suddenly come back to him when he finds himself in a relevant context.
It was Jackson, while still ascended, who explained to Colonel O'Neill of the SGC that Anubis was a Goa'uld who had also once been ascended himself, coincidentally again with the help of Oma Desala. Then for his treachery seeking to use that power and knowledge for his own gain and to interfere directly on our plane, he was punished by being partially descended. Unlike Jackson, Anubis is both part mortal and part ascended still. We are still trying to understand what that means.
So, where does that leave us in terms of your question, regarding who and what Anubis is today? What is he capable of as a partially ascended being? How much is he a Goa'uld as opposed to whatever he is now? Clearly, he still sees himself as a Goa'uld, since he operates within their feudal structure as one of them. However, it is believed he does not even have a physical form any longer. That while he exists here in the mortal plane, he is stuck in the energy form of the ascended. According to Jackson, 'the other' ascended watch Anubis, and prevent him from fully using his ascended powers.
The other big question that they and we have is why did the ascended punish him in such a way that effectively punishes the rest of life in the galaxy in the process? Harry paused to let that entire thing sink in for a moment. I know that is more questions than answers, but that is what we know or suspect so far. That gives you an idea of his nature and some idea of the nature of the ascended, which apparently according to Jackson, consist of many of the Ancients we talk about who also managed to ascend, as well as any number of even older or other sentient species who have likewise ascended over the eons. Harry explained.
All of that has shed more light on the Ancients themselves. The experience of finding the cryogenically preserved Ancient Ayiana, and her brief revival before falling prey to the plague that destroyed her people, together with a partial lexicon of information brought back from Heliopolis when SG-1 found and rescued Doctor Ernest Littlefield-has helped us gain a certain amount of understanding about the Ancients, whom actually called themselves Alterans. For one thing, they were more advanced than any other species we have come across in the galaxy yet, and that was at least seven point five million years ago when Ayiana was left behind in quarantine as her people evacuated the planet. Aside from her apparent healing powers, she appeared in every other way human. Of course, there was not enough time to learn much from her due to language barrier and her death soon after reviving.
However, from that we can hypothesize many other things. For example, some form of extremely advanced human-like civilization lived on Earth long before our current muggle science tells us that humans evolved on Earth. Our species itself might have just started to evolve from simian mammals shortly after that advanced race is believed to have evacuated the planet, and that we supposedly only came to be close to our current form only eight to nine hundred thousand years ago, with great leaps forward around two hundred thousand years ago. So, we wonder, was there an earlier form of human that was somehow responsible for our evolution? Might we be related to them in some way? Who exactly were they and where did they go? Do any of them exist anymore or did the plague completely wipe them out?" Harry concluded, with yet more questions.
"You paint a very curious and troubling picture. Dumbledore replied. What you describe sounds almost surreal even in terms of the magical life we take for granted. Would you describe the powers of these ascended as magical in nature? Or how about the Alterans themselves?" he asked.
"For the ascended, yes, very much so, except on a far larger scale or more powerful. However, you want to look at it. They seem to be able to be anywhere they want at any time. They seem essentially able to do anything they want, even alter reality itself, if it were not for their own rules against interference. If it is magic, it is the most powerful form of magic we could imagine. As for the mortal, living, or non-ascended Alterans our only example being Ayiana's ability to heal by touch, we have no idea." Harry answered.
"Those are interesting observations and questions. However, this new information about these ascended beings is not good, observed Minister Bones. Beside this Anubis, do you think they pose a threat to us? Are they even aware of us? Witches and wizards I mean?"
"First, I think they are aware of everything. That is the sense the SGC and we all get anyway. As for threat, I would like to say no, except that despite their rules, some of them do interfere on our plane as is evident by the actions of Oma Desala herself, then Anubis. Who knows if there are more that do so? However, then there is the uneven manner in which the Other Ascended police their own kind. Oma Desala appears to simply get away with it, while Anubis was partially descended but retained his energy form; and then Jackson was simply descended back into mortal form with memories at least temporarily erased.
I would have to conclude that they are a potential threat both because of their sheer power but, then mostly because they don't police their own kind very well, or at least unevenly-which makes them somewhat unpredictable." Harry suggested.
"It sounds rather similar to the magical world itself." Hermione interjected. That caused a bit of a stir.
"What do you mean by that Doctor Potter?" asked one of the Ministers.
"Well, in the wizarding world, sometimes we lock people up and punish them for misuse of magic, say against muggles or use of dark magic. Then in other cases, we have incidents like with Tom Riddle who went on to become an entrenched Dark Lord. I am not saying it is even within our power to evenly punish or more importantly prevent all our wrongdoers from abusing their powers. Some are more powerful or more evil than others are. Therefore, what I am suggesting is that perhaps that is what is happening with these ascended beings. Perhaps there is a limit to how much even they can do to others of their kind? Maybe it has to do with an individual's own power, whatever species they were originally and its abilities, or how long they had been ascended, or how they ascended? I do not know. I am just wondering out loud about that." she replied.
"It's a good point, admitted Dumbledore. We will need to continue to learn as much about them as we can, while remaining wary and cautious of them at the same time. Meanwhile, I suggest we treat this Anubis as if he is also a Dark Lord, just one of radically different levels and types of power and immense scope. We should be on the lookout for any information that would help us learn how to fight this being. It is clear that he is a threat, probably the worse we have ever faced. With that in mind, Ministers, I am proposing that we double the TND budget and begin to take a more militaristic stance overall. We have been dancing on and off the sidelines with these alien threats, but I think we need to take a bigger lead in combating them, if these are the kind of powers our world will be facing." Dumbledore suggested.
"I agree with all of that Albus. If the additional budget is approved, we will begin looking into ways to expand our military preparations." Harry replied.
Meanwhile, The ICW had finally found a suitable planet for a colony just one hundred forty light-years away. A planet theretofore unknown to even SG-1 as it was not on the Stargate network, which they called Olympus, sticking with their Greek pantheon theme. That was until the ICW moved one of their spare gates there and located their final spare gate at Beauxbatons in France. Just like for the muggles, France was considered a good middle ground for all the ICW member countries to manage colony Stargate travel through.
A full meeting convened at the ICW to present and vote on the plans the civilian organization had made under Susan Bones and to discuss security and logistics for the new colony.
Albus Dumbledore called the meeting to order and began. "Governor Bones and General Potter, please begin by giving us an overview of your plans."
Susan started. "Thank you Supreme Mugwump. With ongoing consultation with your committee, the following is what we are recommending. Since the Goblins and the Elves indicated interest in participating in the new colony with us, we are asking to send eight hundred witches and wizards, one hundred fifty Goblins, and fifty Elves." There was some murmuring among some of the members; they had not considered the Elves. Susan knew this would be the controversial bit.
"Yes, in regard to the Elves, the committee recommended, and both I and General Potter agree that for the purposes of the Colony, that it be established in a different fashion in regard to our relationship with the Elves. Instead of favoring one wealthier household over others for service from the Elves, we wish to follow the tradition of the magical schools. That is, since it is necessary for their continued existence and ability to perform magic, to be bound according to the servitude ritual that created them-we want to bind them simply to the Colony itself, to make their need to be of service to be purely an institutional one for their better treatment. They would all nominally report to me, or whoever the Governor is at any given time and our delegates, the same as one would do in a school with a Headmaster." she explained. The murmuring increased and Dumbledore had to gavel the meeting back to order.
"Please allow Governor Bones to continue," he asked.
"We understand this might be controversial. However, we wish to improve the overall fair treatment and well-being of the Elves over the disparate range of conditions many of them had to live with in the past. There are many practical reasons we could get into if one needed cynical reasons for this, but to sum it up, it is the right thing to do."
Foreshadowing the other reasons she might have to give as cynical, took most of the steam out of some of the people who were surprised by the announcement. Most did not really care either way; they were just used to how things always were. This was just for one small experimental colony anyway. However, it was not worth arguing about in public if everyone was going to believe their questions and the reasons behind them were as cynical as the answers. Therefore, there were no official questions or objections posed and the murmuring stopped. Instead, questions took a different tact.
"Governor Bones," one member began. "Could you explain the roles and functions of the various colonists? What would everyone be doing there?"
"Certainly, everyone's first purpose is to help build and maintain the colony. To learn what it is to live and raise children on another world and to report to the ICW what life on another world is like. In so doing, the colonists will form homesteads of their own. Focusing first on basic subsistence and survival for the colony, and claiming the new world as ours. To begin to form institutions that could in time grow to support a larger colonial effort, if the ICW approves general immigration someday.
The Goblins will serve by leveraging their cultural expertise, as our bankers, miners, and construction in collaboration with an equivalent number of witches and wizards. The Elves will serve the Town Hall or the government on the whole and will be allocated to assist with maintenance and support of all public buildings, infrastructure, common areas, and our first new school," she explained. They would also play a key role in physical security for the colony, but she strategically left that part out for the time being.
"Thank you," the Representative replied.
Another asked, "What about material resources. Do you have a plan for construction materials, food, and other supplies that you will need?"
"Yes, we have a detailed plan for that. We will be taking a little bit of everything. We will be starting up a basic subsistence agriculture program, as well as farms for growing potion ingredients. Toward that end we will be taking as many samples and mated pairs of flora and fauna that we need to begin populating those on the colony as well."
There were no more questions for Susan, so Dumbledore turned to Harry. "General Potter what about transportation, logistics, and security?"
"Currently we have just the one starship, the battlecruiser Hyperion. However, since receiving the Tollan technology and Asgard upgrades, we have a new design on paper that we are getting ready to start a manufacturing process, not only for new ships but for orbital defenses as well. Harry started to explain,
Until a new class of ship is ready, the Hyperion will remain in orbit of Olympus as its first line of defense until we can build up a small fleet and other orbital defenses. We have deployed our last two spare stargates, one to the ICW colony immigration office that recently opened adjacent to Beauxbatons, and one at the central square of the colony. All gates now possess an Asgard energy shield powered by a naquadah generator for protection, far superior to the old Trinium metal iris we inherited from the SGC.
In accordance with the military budget increase from the previous meeting, we are adding plans to construct a shipyard on Olympus itself, to facilitate an expanded rate of growth in future ship production. In addition, a company of our Android soldiers will form a defense outpost adjacent to the colony for its protection, and will double as additional labor for the Governor to use in construction and planetary exploration missions," he concluded.
"With all of those assets allocated to the colony, can you still participate in Earth's defense alongside the IOA and continue to assist them with their technology programs and missions?" Dumbledore asked.
"There is no doubt that we are dividing our resources now. However, yes, we will continue to operate the New York NDC at full staffing. With the colony expansion plans, we have received and accepted applications from more than one hundred additional wizards and witches from around the world who wanted to participate at the NDC, beyond the volunteers Governor Bones got for the colony. Therefore, we will have full staff at the colony defense outpost as well as at the NDC, which itself has doubled in population. The Hyperion can get back to Earth space if it is needed with minutes notice. I hope that with the expanded programs and funding we will get a new prototype battlecruiser into space sooner rather than later."
"一般波特 (General Potter,) the Chinese Representative asked. 与所有的操作经验天下客,至目前为止这个敌人叫Goa'uld的和黑魔王阿努比斯的威胁,这还不够吗?这会不会让我们的人民安全吗? (With all your experience operating off world so far and with this enemy called Goa'uld and the threat of the Dark Lord Anubis, is this enough? Will this keep our people safe?") Thank god for universal translator charms and devices.
"Sir, there is no doubt that if a large and united Goa'uld offensive came to Earth, that right now we would be in big trouble. Their collective across the galaxy has over two hundred Ha'tak motherships that we know of. Some estimates suggest there might be thousands. Between our one ship and the IOA's one ship, we do not have enough to defend against a large attack from space. We know that Anubis is fighting other Goa'uld System Lords for dominance, and we think that will be the biggest threat to an attack on Earth, assuming he succeeds which looks inevitable-it is likely he would then turn his full attention to Earth." There was renewed mumbling and fidgeting in their seats at that prediction.
As to how that affects the colony plans? It is one of the reasons I suggested it in the first place. We specifically want to be prepared, to have a place to evacuate established, if the enemy does come to Earth en masse and we are unable to defend from them. Olympus was chosen because all records indicate it has never held a Stargate before and we know of no other Goa'uld or extra-terrestrial interest in the planet. It is essentially off all known maps and galactically speaking relatively close to Earth.
The next thing is to continually increase our military footing, prepare orbital defenses, and build more and better ships. So that when and if they do come, we will be better prepared for them." Harry explained.
Dumbledore added his own to this point. "What General Potter said is correct and why you all have seen me push so hard for all of these changes. It is certain that these muggle technologies and threats, that in the past we might have simply downplayed as muggle affairs, are now our problems too. These enemies are too powerful even for the combined might of the muggles right now.
"In the past, we wizards and witches never entertained such nonsense as the idea of aliens from other planets coming to attack us. The idea of their very existence was ridiculous to us; it was all the stuff of muggle comic books. Yet, nevertheless, in a just a few short years we learned that it is not nonsense, and we were wrong on all accounts. I suggest we continue to press forward to catch up and do our part to defend Earth. As well as Harry wisely suggested, do our part to ensure the wizarding world has our own backup plan, should we fail here." Dumbledore concluded. The meeting went on from there for a couple more hours into the minutia of details and budgets. Nevertheless, in the end the entire program was approved and General Potter and Governor Bones given wide latitude to get it done.
...
The race was on to develop and try to build new ships as fast as possible because everyone knew that Anubis was gaining ground among the system lords and someday would turn his attention onto Earth directly.
In August 2003, the SGC learned that Anubis had developed something called Kull super-soldiers with their own brand of apparently invulnerable armor. Thus, ND-3 was assigned on a permanent basis to the SGC to consult and assist them with any confrontations with the Kull warriors. Justin Finch-Fletchley led ND-3, and his team members were Hannah Abbott, Orla Quirk, and Dennis Creevey.
Rebels captured Doctor Jackson and Doctor Lee in Honduras, while they were looking for an ancient artifact that could give them clues how the Kull warriors might be created. Colonel O'Neill led a rescue to Honduras while Major Carter and Teal'c accompanied by Selmak/Jacob, Bratac, another SG team and ND-3 went to the Goa'uld Ramius' home world to capture a Kull warrior, based on intelligence that one would appear there. All they were able to get from the Kull warrior, thanks to the Tok'ra memory recall device, was that he served Anubis and was created on a planet called Tartarus.
The team then went on to Tartarus, led into Anubis base by Jacob/Selmak. While there, they found a Goa'uld queen symbiote, which was creating larvae without a mind, in the same way the Tok'ra queen symbiote Egeria from Pangar did which led Teal'c to understand that Anubis must have learned of the technique when he probed Jonas Quinn's mind while he held Jonas captive during a previous mission. They found another room with thousands of super-soldiers just ready to be fashioned into Kull warriors.
The team encountered Anubis' underlord Thoth, having to kill him to escape, which triggered an alarm. They managed to escape, blowing up the queen with C-4 on the way out. Back at the SGC with SG-1 reunited, Colonel O'Neill having also successfully rescued Doctors Jackson and Lee, they concluded that all they managed to do was delay Anubis ability to create more super soldiers, but everyone was disheartened that he already had an army of hundreds.
Subsequent to the Tartarus mission, the IOA made a request to the ICW about them being able to commit matching numbers of their own advanced armor for their soldiers.
"I'm sorry General, and Colonel. Harry addressed the meeting. As we stated in the beginning, our armor is not one of the items we can share with you."
"Aw, c'mon. Doctor Potter," O'Neill started,
"Actually, it's General now, Colonel." Harry replied.
"Whatever. Why do you people push back on us at least half the time? Like you said, this is your world too?" O'Neill blustered.
"Colonel!" reprimanded Major General Landry.
"That's okay General. I understand his frustration. Moreover, I know my answer is not going to be a lot more help. Nevertheless, there are really two major material problems. One is that some of the most advanced features of the armor are not useable by your people, only by ours. On top of that, the armor is made out of an alloy of a rare metal that is in scarce supply. We couldn't build hundreds of those suits of armor for you even if we wanted to." Harry explained.
"If it's funding, maybe we could get the funds you need to obtain the metal you need?" countered Colonel O'Neill.
"That's not the problem. We have funding too. There just is not that much of it that we can get at any one time. We can only get a small supply of it on a regular basis because that is just all we can get." Harry clarified.
"But why is it always, there is something you can do that we can't, and special resources you can get that we can't even know about? It's not like you're mutants or something right?" O'Neill pressed.
"You know how this goes Colonel, I say it's classified and you stop asking questions." Harry calmly answered.
"I know but, it just doesn't seem to make sense. Our heads of state know what is going on. They know how much is at stake across the board for all of us, why won't they either clear us for access to that stuff or something?" O'Neill continued to vent his frustrations.
"Again, for one part, in regard to the metal itself that makes the armor special. It would not matter who had access to it, there's only so much. You could not make hundreds of sets of the armor even if you were fully briefed into it and I handed you the manuals. As for the rest, it is honestly above my pay grade too. Therefore, there is nothing I can say. I just know how the armor works and I know you would not be able to use it to its fullest; I am just not allowed to tell you why." Harry said, O'Neill looked to be gearing up to spew some more and Harry just held him off with a gesture...
"Wait, Colonel. There is something I can do that might help. It might even be better." Harry paused and quickly replayed the scenario in his mind that had just occurred to him, trying to find a problem with what he was about to suggest.
"... You did not ask for this because you know nothing about it. However, another secret of ours is actually in my authority to share. This must be kept with the utmost secrecy that already exists between us though." Harry said with a look to Major General Landry. O'Neill began to look thoughtful and hopeful again as opposed to ranting.
"You have our word General, as always." Major General Landry reiterated.
"Do you remember that android SG-1 from Altair, and Harlan and his android manufacturing machines?" Harry asked.
"Yes. The androids of us were destroyed though," replied O'Neill.
"Yes, we know." Harry replied.
"Well, it just so happened that one of the early missions we went on, behind SG-1 as it were, behind your back, I won't mince words about it. We paid our own visit to Altair and bargained with Harlan for a set of his android manufacturing machines, with instructions how to make our own androids for soldiers," said Harry, intentionally leaving out certain awkward details.
"Why the hell didn't we think of that?" asked O'Neill, looking over to Major Carter who just shrugged.
"So, what are you suggesting General? For us to get some android soldiers from you for the SGC or do you just want to supply us some of yours? What are you offering?" asked Major General Landry.
"I think the best way to handle it would be for the ICW to manufacture and provide the IOA your own androids built to your specification, at cost, for however many you need. Harry started,
"Remember, to work they still need a copy of a human consciousness added to them. Harlan told us how to blend a couple different consciousnesses together into a new unique pattern and how to customize the resulting artificial mind for less personality and more loyalty, what have you. You would likely want to get just the right sort of volunteers to create a template pattern. Once you have one, you can make as many copies of it that you want. Harry suggested.
You might want someone with a ton of expertise and experience in all manner of warfare, weapons and tactics. On the other hand, you might want to start with someone just out of boot camp without much of a personal history to skew things, customize it and train it up the way you want." Harry suggested.
"I think I know one reason that we wouldn't have gone down that path back in the day, began Major Carter. The fact that it is based on an existing human consciousness in order to work, a full copy of the memories of someone, their entire identity...essentially copying them as far as we could tell, completely violating their privacy. This has moral implications."
Harry just thought, 'If she only knew,' which he intended to make sure never happened. Not that he feared any real consequences, but it would be awkward for a while.
"Well, it's up to you. Perhaps you never asked Harlan, but the memories can be down selected before imprinting and then during imprinting further customized. The new template could simply have the education, training, skills, even some experience of the original, while removing a lot of the individuality of the original from the new matrix. They can be made to believe themselves to be entirely new and different people or to understand they are not people to begin with. I think Harlan must have just gone with the full default mode of his machines when he copied you all because that is what he wanted. You can do many other things with the technology, than just that. Harry explained. You could even have us train the individual who would be the template for your custom designed android and let them down select all the memories they don't want the android to have, thus preserving the amount of privacy of importance to them."
"That sounds promising, said General Landry. Let me send that suggestion up the chain of command here and see what we can do."
...
In September 2003, the IOA and ICW each established a mining treaty with the Unas, allowing them to start work on their BC-304, and new Helios battlecruiser programs, respectively. The rest of the year was spent focused on their ship programs, getting an android soldier template into production for the IOA, and the ICW getting their Olympus colony started up.
In January 2004, Jonas Quinn arrived back on Earth looking for help. Due to the mining of naquadriah, Langara was experiencing violent tremors and would soon face a quake that would destroy Kelowna. Major Carter went back to Langara with Quinn to help him devise a solution to stop the spread of the fault line, while the SGC hosted delegations of leaders from all three Langara nations who argued over the best ways to evacuate if the worst should happen. Eventually, Carter and Quinn stopped the fault by detonating a bomb with the help of a Ba'al Goa'uld agent who had been posing as Quinn's assistant, and the planet was saved.
In February, Major Carter and Jacob/Selmak were at the IOA Alpha Site working on a prototype weapon that could kill a Kull warrior, but the site was compromised and attacked by Anubis' forces. An evacuation was ordered but Carter and Jacob did not make it out. SG-1 returned to the Alpha Site, with ND-4 (Led by Charlie Weasley, with team members Dora Weasley, Kevin Entwhistle and Padma Patil)-to see what happened and rescue Carter and Jacob. They found Jacob injured and Doctor Jackson returned to the SGC with him while the rest continued the search for Carter and other survivors and the Kull warrior who attacked them.
Colonel O'Neill finally killed the Kull warrior using the prototype after they found Carter and she provided the power device for the disruptor. At the end of the mission though, the closer alliance that had been forming between the Jaffa Rebellion, the Tok'ra, and the Tau'ri, at the Alpha site-fell apart. The Tok'ra because they felt they just could not operate with full disclosure to the Tau'ri, and the Jaffa because they decided it would be better to go elsewhere and set up their own government.
In March 2004, the US inaugurated a new President, Henry Hayes, with Robert Kinsey as Vice President. With Kinsey in a higher position, he once again tried to gain influence in the Stargate program. But, since by that time it was firmly in control of the IOA for the UN and Hayes was warned about Kinsey by Woolsey after the President got briefed in; he all but shut Kinsey out of access to the program altogether. To seal the deal, Woolsey met with General Maynard regarding his suspicions of Vice President Kinsey, and directed to Lieutenant General Hammond, who entrusted Woolsey with a copy of a disk secured by Colonels O'Neill and Maybourne during the blackmailing incident. It was all that the President needed to keep Kinsey in the corner with his mouth shut after that.
At the same time, the ICW launched its new battlecruiser, the Helios. It was similar to the Hyperion in appearance, just larger all around and built with Asgard hyper-drive and Asgard shields. It possessed two primary forward Tollan Ion cannons instead of one, and one retractable twin Tollan Ion cannon turret on the top and another on the bottom of the ship, in addition to all of the standard Hyperion class armaments. Each of the Tollan Ion Cannons possessed their own dedicated Tollan Fission Reactor, so their power was independent of propulsion, shields, and other ships systems. Instead of carrying an Al'kesh and a Quinjet, it carried two IOA F-302 hyperspace interceptors. It became the ICW's new flagship, while the Hyperion received a new crew, and its Al'kesh and Quinjet were removed, sent to Olympus for local use there, while two F-302 hyperspace interceptors also replaced them.
Later that month, while the Helios was still out on shakedown trials, SG-1 and ND-4 collaborated on a search for the Lost City of the Ancients. SG-2 had found another planet with an Ancient Repository of Knowledge, so Landry authorized a mission to try to beat Anubis to it, possibly also securing information on the Lost City of the Ancients. However, the plan was to bring it back in tact to have information extracted more carefully.
Unfortunately, while they were still trying to figure out how to safely extract it, Anubis' fleet jumped out of hyperspace over the planet and sent a squadron of Al'kesh and Death Gliders to carpet bomb the area. ND-4 could not resort to magic either, both because of exposure as well as they could not be sure they would not damage it in some way. Therefore, once again, in a rush and in an effort to avoid failure, O'Neill stuck his head into the repository and downloaded the information for a second time. The team destroyed the repository with C-4 and made their escape with Teal'c and Daniel carrying Jack back to the gate.
Back at the SGC, Jack began transitioning once again into 'Ancient' mode, slowly losing his own mind, while his language changed to Ancient. Then Bratac visited Earth to inform the SGC that Anubis planned to violate the Protected Planets Treaty and would be there to attack Earth in three days.
SG-1 was authorized a mission with the now Anciently-O'Neill to try to find the Lost City and get back with a winning hand before three days were up. O'Neill seemed to be preparing to go anyway, even though at that point no one could really communicate with him. The rest of the team was simply authorized to help and follow him. SG-1 met Bratac and Teal'c on Chulak where they teamed up with a Jaffa named Ronan who offered his Tel'tak to help them on the mission.
ND-4 returned to the NDC to begin preparations on their end with the rest of their teams and their two ships to prepare for planetary defense. The Hyperion was recalled from Olympus and the Helios was recalled from trials. Meanwhile the IOA had ordered General Hammond to take command of the Prometheus and coordinate space defense with the ICW.
Three days later, Anubis fleet arrived, approached Earth but only sent in three of his roughly three dozen Ha'tak first, to goad Earth into revealing its defenses. Hammond convinced the IOA and ICW to hold off on committing Prometheus, Hyperion, and Helios in order to not reveal their strength to Anubis just yet. The SGC had been promoting a bluff in off-world contacts about Earth's defensive power and they were hoping they had succeeded with it. In addition, it would give SG-1 more time, the longer they could delay the start of an engagement.
