Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis or Battlestar Galactica.
Note: This reality is set roughly ten years after the last episode. The Galactica still hasn't found Earth and the morale of the Colonial fleet is low, some believing they'll never find the Thirteenth Colony. For the purposes of this story the Earth year is 2137.
The Quantum Gate closed behind them and everyone on the bridge of the Orion sighed in relief. Major Jacob O'Neill, tapped the button for the fleet comm channel. Gathering his thoughts he prepared for what he wanted to say.
"All ships this is the Orion. We did it. After four years of planning, the sacrifices of our lost comrades, our worlds, our galaxies, we're finally free of the Ori. I would like a senior meeting of the fleet commanders and all military and civilian leaders in one hour aboard the Orion. We need to discuss our next course of action. Scout ships are to scan and recon the local area. We don't want to anger any of the natives if we've stumbled into their territory by mistake. All ships begin system checks, ensure nothing was damaged. City ships and civilian transports maintain position within the center of the fleet, Jaffa Hat'aks, Asgard Battlecruisers and Tau'ri Warships shall maintain a perimeter around all other ships. That is all, Orion out."
He didn't know how or why, but everyone from the Tok'ra, the Asgard and the Jaffa were all looking to him for leadership. It was probably because his parents led the charge which eventuall brought about the end of the Goa'uld and the Replicators, and were now looking at him to lead them into a new world. Speaking of his parents, he didn't know how his mom and Thor had managed it but they'd somehow talked his dad into cloning all of SG1 in younger bodies....well except for Teal'c...he was still quite young for a Jaffa, or at least Master Bra'tac kept saying so anyway. He was glad they'd found a way to give the Jaffa their own immune systems, almost equal in strength to that of a symbiote, which meant they'd live far longer than normal. It's estimated Master Bra'tac has another hundred years left in him at least. As for the rest of SG1 they were in stasis on Thors ship awaiting reanimation. Thor had left when his parents would awaken to Jacob, seeing as he was their son. Daniel and Vala would be awoken by the order of their daughter Sha're Jackson. Cameron Mitchell had declined the chance to 'start over' as it were, said he could here his grandma spouting warnings of hellfire and brimstone and him burning in hell if he did. Even though she'd been dead for years.
"Alright people....lets get to work!"
There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive somewhere beyond the heavens...
Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last Battlestar, Galactica, leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest for a shining planet--known as Earth.
Commander Adama was sat in his office aboard the Galactica, dark thoughts were running through his mind, doubt, fear and hopelessness plauged him constantly. It had been ten yahren since the destruction of the Twelve Colonies, ten yahren since they began running from the Cylons. In all that time the only things that had kept them all going was the dream of one day finding Earth, the fabled lost Thirteenth Colony. So many people had placed their trust in him and now many were starting to think that they had been wrong to do so, that he was mentaly unstable, had been since the destruction of the colonies. There was a small group of civilians who believed they should settle down on the first habitable planet they find, but fear of the Cylons kept their numbers small.
The only recent good news had come four yahren ago when they'd met up with another fleet of Colonials, commanded by a Lieutenant Commander Nels. The Lt. Commander had confessed to Adama that a great ship of lights had told him to travel a path that had been almost parallel to the Galactica's. He had never told anyone else in his fleet about the ship of lights, but he felt he should inform a superior officer. He was amazed to discover that Adama had been to Kobol and too had encountered the ship of lights. The Lt. Commander's fleet had kept to the course given to them until a blackhole forced them to divert by several light-yahren, which led to their meeting with the Galactica. Many of the ships that came with the Lt. Commander were military transports, carrying thousands of Colonial Warriors and Viper Pilots. Most of the ships were civilian but three particular ships had surprised Adama greatly, Colonial Battle Cruisers. They were of an out dated design, older and smaller than the Galactica, last used in service over a hundred yahren ago.
The Lt. Commander had informed him that they had come by several asteroids and planetoids rich in minerals used in ship construction. They spent five yahren building the Battle Cruisers. The Zeus, the Poseidon and the Aries.
During the yahren that Lt. Commander Nels' fleet reunited with the Galactica's fleet, hope had been restored. But it wasn't to last.
He longed for those days, when people believed as he did, trusted him and kept the faith. Now, four yahren onwards and many had taken to praying to the Gods for mercy when the Cylons would eventually come for them, about a dozen went so far as to offer themselves as willing sacrifices, taking their own lives. People blamed him for those suicides, he was the one to lead them on this quest and in ten yahren he had shown nothing for it, not a single trace of Earth.
The call for him to come to the core command brought him out of his dark musings. He raced out of his office towards core command, fear gripping him that the Cylons had found them again. As he reached his destination, he requested an update.
"What do we have?"
Colonel Tigh turned to look at the Commander.
"We picked up a massive energy signature several solar-units away, we launched Vipers out to investigate and should be hearing from them in a few microns."
"Galactica, this is Starbuck. Do you read me?"
"We read you Starbuck, what's your current position?"
"We're less than an SU away from where the energy readings came from. Whatever caused it should come up on our scopes in a few centons."
"Galactica this is Boomer. I'm picking up multiple unidentified targets on my sensors. Going in to investigate."
It was a tense few centons for the command crew of the Galactica. They all knew that the unidentified targets could be anything from an asteroid field, to space debree or worse a Cylon fleet.
"Coming within visual range." Adama at that moment closed his eyes and prayed to the gods.
"Holy Frak!!" The entire command crew jumped at Starbuck's exclimation. "Galactica it's a fleet of ships! Hundreds, possibly thousands!!"
Adama felt his hopes burning away once again. Only Cylons had fleets that big, but they never came this far out of Cylon controlled space.
"Inform the fleet to jump to a safe distance, we..." but he was cut off by Boomer's voice.
"Commander, they're not Cylons. There are dozens of different ship types, and if these readings are right then the largest seem to be dawrf the Galactica!"
Adama contemplated what they should do.
"Starbuck, Boomer, return to the Galactica, we're going to attempt first contact." He turned to Colonel Tigh. "Order the fleet to prepare for an emergency jump, if the people on these ships are hostile I want the fleet to make a quick escape." The Colonel nodded and went about contacting the fleet.
It was a full fifteen centons before Starbuck and Boomer were safely back on the Galactica. It took another ten centons before they could reach core command. Adama could hear their bickering coming from down the hall. He smiled, no matter what else may change within the fleet, you could always count on Starbuck and Boomer to contantly bicker and joke together like children. When they reached core command they quieted down, the Galactica had been moving towards this strange fleet and they were now within scanning range.
"Scanners confirm a large fleet of ships. Well over a thousand, sensors confirm that the largest ships have no weapons, they seem to be transports of some kind. I'm not picking up any comm chatter sir, either thier maintaining communications silence or they're using an unknown form of communication."
"Send the following message on all frequencies in all known languages. 'This is the Colonial Battlestar Galactica, we are escorting our refugee fleet, the last of the people of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, we come in peace.' Set the message on constant transmission, they may need time to translate."
"Yes sir."
Onboard the O'Neill-class Battlecruiser JacobO'Neill."
Thor scanned the ship approaching the fleet, it was smaller than his own ship, but far larger than the Tau'ri and Jaffa ships, besides the stasis ships. Thor had always been impressed by the Tau'ri and recent events only proved to him that they were indeed the fifth race. When the Asgard had come to aid the Tau'ri in the war against the Ori, they found them defiant to the Ori, refusing to give in, but accepting their fate. When the Asgard informed them that they would help them increase the speed of their ship building abilities by almost five-hundred percent the Tau'ri proved how prepared to salvage their race they were. Half their total ships yards across five worlds were dedicated to creating the stasis ships, the Tau'ri had even asked the Asgard to help the Jaffa, Langara and Hebridan to build their own. The total number of stasis ships was one-hundred and sixty-seven.
Thor himself was impressed even further when they came up with the plan for the Quantum Gate, the Asgard had performed most of the construction but the Tau'ri with access to the knowledge of the Ancients were the architects.
Now they were safe, at least as far as they could tell, there was no telling what dangers were present in the reality they were now in, but as the humans said, it couldn't be as bad as the Ori.
Now however Thor was about to discover if that was true or not. The ship before them was almost as large his own, but scans detected that it was greatly inferior to any of the ships in the fleet. It was then that the ship began transmitting a message in multiple languages, obviously attempting first contact. Thor found it intriguing that several of the languages were derived from several ancient languages found on Earth. Some were even close to those spoken up until this day by several such people who had been transplanted by the Goa'uld on many worlds, one such world being Abydos.
Although different, two of the languages being transmitted were close to modern Abydonian, not an exact match by any standards, infact if you were to speak one of these two languages to an Abydonian they wouldn't have a clue what you were saying. No doubt the greatest linguistic minds of the Tau'ri, one of those being Sha're Jackson would find the commonalties between the languages. Thor was proven right when he recieved a message from the Orion, Sha're Jackson had seen the pattern between Abydonian aswell as other Egyptian based languages found throughout the galaxy and these two languages. She had also discovered four other languages derived from both ancient Greek and Mayan.
Using those ancient languages as a base, translations were soon completed and the message decoded. It was played across the entire fleet.
"This is the Colonial Battlestar Galactica, we are escorting our refugee fleet, the last of the people of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, we come in peace."
Thor could feel sympathy for these people for they too were now refugees. Contacting the other two commanders of the Exodus fleet, Jacob O'Neill and Teal'c it was decided that perhaps they could help each other. Jacob O'Neill was chosen to make first contact, which he grumbled and moaned about as much as his father would, which reminded Thor. He looked towards the four stasis pods aboard his ship, his very good friends Jack O'Neill, Samatha O'Neill, Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran-Jackson, each one cloned and placed in new, younger bodies awaiting the time their children will awaken them. He hoped that time was soon.
Thor turned back to watch what would one day become the greatest moment in the history of the Twelve Colonies, their first meeting with another branch of humanity. However, not exactly the one they were looking for.
Onboard the bridge of the Orion
"Send response to the Galactica. 'We are the Exodus fleet. We are made of many people, many worlds. Human, Jaffa, Tokra, Serrakin, Gadmeer and Asgard. We too come in peace.' Transmit on all the languages they sent us."
"Aye sir."
Galactica Core Command
Adama and the rest of the command crew, along with Starbuck and Boomer waited for a response. One of the mid sized ship came fowards and came to a stop two-hundred-thousand metrons from the Galactica.
"Commander we are recieving a response to our message."
The crew each watched the screen as the message appeared.
'We are the Exodus fleet. We are made of many people, many worlds. Human, Jaffa, Tokra, Serrakin, Gadmeer and Asgard. We too come in peace.'
"Human!" That single word sent a ripple through the Core Command. Several people began speaking at once, one or two praying to the gods.
"Alright settle down!" Adama regained control of his people, they needed to stay focused after all. "Open communications with that ship."
"Yes sir. Channel open"
"This is Commander Adama of the Battlestar Galactica, we too are human, would it be possible to contact one of the human ships to verify?"
Orion Bridge
"Major they've requesting to communicate."
"Accept request and open channel"
"Yes sir, channel open."
"Rae mir Geronis Adama emirs fer Celon-ter Galactica, herip wor ollas boran, yer par da jossip man gerif ili emirs fer boran niriph fer kilida?"
The Comms officer hit the mute button, so as to relay what the linguists were telling her.
"Linguistics are running the phonetics through the database. They say it sounds like a combination of languages, Egyptian, Greek, Mayan and possibly a few others. Like all languages do they've evolved independantly of each other and become this single spoken language, the linguists believe it could of started as means for traders to communicate with each other and then evolved to a language all the twelve colonies used for communication. Linguistics report the translation program is complete, the computers will now translate for us. Playing last message again."
"This is Commander Adama of the Battlestar Galactica, we too are human, would it be possible to contact one of the human ships to verify?"
The comms officer deactivated the mute setting and Jacob prepared for his first chat with Commander Adama.
"This is Major Jacob O'Neill of the Tau'ri Warship Orion"
"Tau'ri? You're previous message made no mention of them."
"That's because Tau'ri is what we call the people of our homeworld and colonies much how you call yourselves Colonials. I am human."
There was an excited murmer from the other end. Adama must have done or said something since it all quieted down.
"That is wonderful news! We haven't encountered any other humans appart from other Colonials for almost ten yahren. Tell me are you of the Thirteenth Colony, are you from Earth?"
Jacob bit his lip, he was born on Earth but not this realities Earth. But he couldn't tell them that, they may not have any understanding of quantum realities.
"No we're not. Our world like our people is known as Tau'ri." It was the truth, the Jaffa, Goa'uld, Tok'ra, Asgard and everyone else called the first world Tau'ri.
Jacob heard Adama sigh in disappointment, he hated having to dash his hopes but the Colonials were looking for the Earth of this reality, not the smouldering ruin that was his homeworld.
"It was too much to hope, we have been seeking Earth for ten yahren, ever since the destruction of the Twelve Colonies. But tell me, if you are not of the Twelve Colonies or of the Thirteenth then who are you, we believed Kobol to only have thirteen tribes."
"It's both a difficult and lengthy explination. Perhaps I and a few others could come onboard to explain our story to you?"
There was a pause, as if he was debating letting strangers onboard his ship.
"Very well, shall we send a ship to pick you up?"
"That won't be necessary, we'll come onboard via a Jaffa Tel'tac."
"Tel'tac?"
"A small cargo ship, used mainly to transport goods."
"Very well. We'll expect you in sixty centons. Galactica out."
"Well that went rather well. Contact Thor and Teal'c, tell them I want them to accompany myself and Sha're onboard the Tel'tac. Tell Teal'c he can bring one other with him, I'm sure Thor will only bring himself."
"Yes sir."
"XO, you have the bridge. While I'm gone find out where in space we are."
"Aye sir."
Jacob pressed a button on the left armrest of his chair. "Dr Jackson proceed to transporter control with First Contact package." With that done he left the bridge.
Galactica Core Command
"They're not of the Twelve Colonies or the Thirteenth, but they're human. How can that be, the Book of Kobol says that all humans are of the Thirteen tribes."
Adama thought of what Boomer had said, he knew it too for he had read the Book of Kobol from cover to cover many times. He contemplated this new dilema.
"It could be they are of the Thirteenth Colony, but have forgotten about us, about Kobol. They have been isolated from the other tribes since the destruction of Kobol, it's possible in that time that many things could have happened that caused them to forget their origins, but that is just speculation. We will have to wait, the Commander of the Orion did say that it was a difficult and lengthy explination."
They all nodded. A console to their right beeped and the technician stationed at it pressed a series of buttons.
"Commander, a ship is approaching the Orion."
"Do we have it on visual?" The technician nodded.
On the screen before them they got their first glimpse of the Orion and the larger vessel behind it. Then out from behind that vessel came another, one that shocked the Colonials.
"That's a pyramid!!"
Indeed it was, a pyramid shaped ship within a support structure. If they had suspected before that this was some sort of elaborate Cylon trap or some kind of alien plan to dominate them, then that ship washed away all suspicions. When the ship came to stop beside the Orion another smaller ship exited and came towards the Galactica.
"Sir transmission from the approaching vessel." Adama nodded to accept the transmission
A gruff voice came from the other end.
"This is the Jaffa Tel'tak of the Jaffa Warship Renek Kalash, we are making our approach."
"Jaffa Tel'tac, you are cleared for the starboard landing deck."
"Confirmed Glactica. Tel'tac out."
"My he was a bustling bundle of friendlyness."
Boomer looked towards Starbuck with a resigned look, no matter how old he got, he would always act like a child. Adama smiled slightly but he couldn't let Starbuck get away with it.
"Now Starbuck, we probably don't understand their ways, the same as they probably don't understand ours so please don't go offending potential allies."
"Yes Commander." A technician chose that moment to speak.
"The Jaffa Tel'tac has landed in the starboard landing deck."
Adama, Tigh, Boomer and Starbuck moved off towards the landing deck. Tigh turned just as he left.
"Omega you have the Core Command."
"Yes Colonel."
He continued onwards with the rest of the party towards the landing deck, the Galactica's first meeting with humans since they'd found Lt. Commander Nels' fleet.
To Be Continued.....
Author's Notes:
I'm not 100 Percent sure if I've got everything right, one thing I know is that light-yahren was never mentioned in the show, but concidering you have to take light years into concideration when dealing with travel between star systems, I added it in.
I haven't seen the show in a while so I can't remember how the characters act exactly, so I've set this story ten years after the show, some of the character's personalities will have changed slightly as they aged, plus the Colonial fleet is losing hope, fast, and are putting all the blame on Adama. Anyway, hope you like it.