... He's Just an Idiot (The Last Man)
"Good luck, John." The hologram created by Rodney McKay used the city's internal sensors to take a last look at Colonel Sheppard before the stasis pod surrounded his body with what looked like ice. But it was actually a quantum probability field that decreased the interaction probability of the particles inside and slowed them down to a speed near zero values.
After making sure Sheppard was comfortable in the pod, the hologram deactivated itself to save power. He would activate again after the city's sensors detected suitable conditions for the appearance of the desired solar flare. This was how his creator planned things to happen. This was what the hologram was programmed to believe. Little did he know how stupid his creator had been.
92 years later
The Rodney hologram used the city's sensors once more to verify what they told him just a few seconds before, but what they told him was basically the same. Nothing made sense in the reality he had found himself in. The position of stars he got indicated it was midday just an hour ago, but the ambient light sensors told him that it was night. Furthermore, the data he got about the planet's orbit around the local star didn't make any sense. Finally, he decided to look into the Ancient database for information about the solar system.
"Okay, okay - here is the system, let's see what we have here – age: 200 million years. Hey!!" On that moment, the hologram began suspecting something very nasty – 200 million years was way too little for a star – but he still kept reading. "Primary color in visible spectrum has been modified from 595 to 472 nanometers … What the hell?" Despite everything, the hologram kept reading the Ancient records. "Sole planet created artificially by collapsing parts of the local asteroid field into a coherent structure with subsequent environmental manipulation and introduction of animals and plants - why would they do that?" Rodney asked himself until he stumbled upon the next part of the records. "Planet served two purposes: One, easier mining of the asteroid belt's extensive mineral deposits, and two, testing ground for various technologies like 'gravity manipulation', 'environmental manipulation' and 'fusion manipulation'. Tests showed that manipulated environments are capable of self-maintenance. Introduced forms of life have begun to adapt themselves to the environmental specifications of the planet immediately after introduction. Those with short lifespans have displayed complete adaptation within 200 generations. Okay, that explains it, but why would the Ancients leave? Fifteen years after commencing mining operations, the Wraith have discovered and destroyed the Ancients' presence here. Good, but that's still not what I'm looking for."
With nothing left to lose, the hologram skipped to the last record involving this solar system. "Be advised that the asteroid belt was on the outer edge of what we call a 'useful range' of the solar system. Creating a viable environment required the use of fusion modification technology on the local star. After all mining operations and biological experiments are concluded, the star should be returned to its original state. Otherwise, it will collapse into a black hole in exactly 58276 years." After discovering this piece of information, the hologram took the date of this record and compared it to the current date. It was exactly 58276 years and 51 days. His creator obviously didn't read the entire story about the local star.
The only thing that he could do now was to lock the stasis pod to make sure Sheppard would never wake up – using the Stargate with a collapsing star around would definitely kill everything that enters its event horizon. That was the last thing the hologram did while in existence. History will not be changed – not this time.
AN: Thanks once more to Reiko for her beta. More Sheppard deaths are on the way. If anyone has a challenge and is willing to share, I'll be grateful for everything you can give me.
The numbers in this story are not accurate - there is no scientific base for a stellar lifecycle yet. I had to use an empiric base. I can assure you that in light of the things presented in 'The Last Man', this is one of two solutions that make sense. (The other is that McKay is a total idiot, who doesn't know the first thing about how stars work)
