"Excuse me?" Jack turned to Anna not quite believing what he had just heard. "Did you just say the Furlings?"
Daniel stared at her, in shock. Slowly comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh my god! Of course! How could I have been so stupid. I mean it makes perfect sense. I should of realized...," his voice getting louder, pacing back and forth.
"Daniel!" Jack decided it was time to intercede, before Daniel's head exploded.
Daniel stopped and looked straight at Jack
"Why do you think we have never met them! In all the years we've been using the Stargate we've met the Asgard, the Nox, the Ancients! Yet we've never met them! Doesn't that strike you as odd?" not wanting a response Daniel continued, "Not only that, why have we found so little evidence of them. In all the writings, databases that I've gone through their hardly mentioned, yet we've found plenty about the Ancients, the Asgard. And I think I've just realized why."
With that Daniel went closer to Thor. "That's why you call them 'The Betrayers'. Because that's what they did, didn't they? The great alliance that you had, it was broken wasn't it? By them, the Furlings."
For a second the hologram said nothing, almost as if it was a living thing and that it was thinking through what to say. Finally Thor spoke, "Doctor Jackson and Doctor Shaw are correct."
For a few seconds it was quiet, everyone in the room except Daniel and Anna were in complete shock.
Jack was the first to speak, "Did he just say, what I think he just said?" Quickly he put up his hand to silence Sam who had opened her mouth to speak. "And no Carter. That was not a question. I know what he said."
"Wait a minute. I thought the Furlings were meant to be friends. Now you telling us there... enemies?" said Cameron, looking at all the others, before stopping to look at Anna, "And Doc, how the hell, did you know?"
"Yes, how did you know?" asked Daniel. He had to admit he was curious as to how she had figured it out so quickly.
"I wasn't sure. Not really. It just made sense. They attacked an Ancient ship and succeeded in disabling it, killing all the Ancients on board. And then Thor, he called them 'The Betrayers'. Why? It had to be someone that was an enemy of both the Ancients and the Asgard. And the word betrayers, it's personal, it's what you'd call someone who had been a friend or an ally. I knew it couldn't be the Nox. It only left the Furlings."
"Well, when you put it like that." Jack had to admit that what the Doc was saying did make some sense. Still it was a big leap from ally to enemy. They needed to know more about what they were up against. With that he turned to the image of Thor. It felt strange to see Thor here. He knew it was only a holographic image, a representation of all the Asgard knowledge that had been stored on the ship, but it was still strange. Thor had been a friend. And now he and all the other Asgard were gone. Well accept, for the rogue group that Daniel had come across at Atlantis. "Thor..umm buddy. I think you need to tell us more."
"Yes, Jack's right. The Furlings were part of the alliance, what happened to change that? Why are they your enemies?" Daniel looked at the image of Thor.
Thor looked back, his black eyes blinking steadily. Again it appeared as if he was thinking before he spoke, "You must understand, what happened with the Furlings is not something that we have been willing to talk about. Like the Ancients, many Asgard preferred to wipe out any mention of them and what happened."
"I understand that. But their here. And if their as dangerous as you say they are, we need to know more. We need to know what we're facing." Daniel was surprised that the holographic Thor seemed almost reluctant to talk. Whatever it was that the Asgard knew, it was obviously something that didn't wish to discuss.
"I agreed. You must understand that the Furlings have always been a secretive race. But gradually we were able to build an alliance with them based on mutual interests and beliefs. Like all of us involved in the alliance the Furlings were a technologically advanced and benevolent race. Or so we thought. When a group of Ancients discovered evidence that the Furlings were carrying out unwarranted scientific research that had the potential to harm lesser races they confronted them. The Furlings killed them. The Ancients and the Asgard joined forces and followed the Furlings to their home galaxy. The Furlings responded to this act of aggression by destroying their home galaxy by instating a chain reaction that caused their sun to go supernova. Thus killing themselves and all life in their galaxy."
"They blew up their sun! That's a pretty extreme measure, if you ask me." Cameron really didn't like the sound of where this was going.
"It was, as you say an 'extreme measure'. The Furlings were not the only race in their galaxy, other races were also destroyed. Both the Ancients and the Asgard felt responsible for what happened. Billions of lives had been lost because of our actions. The Furlings had been our allies, yet we did not realise until to late what they were capable of. It is this that is our greatest shame."
" They committed mass suicide, and took everything that was in range with them?" Anna shook her head in complete shock, this she hadn't been expecting.
"Yes they did, except they obviously didn't all die, did they?" Daniel knew that there was more to the story.
"You are correct. In time a few of us began to suspect that some of the Furlings had escaped the destruction of their galaxy. It was, we now believe their intention all along. To sacrifice some of themselves, so that a few could go into hiding. We did not realise their true intentions until much later."
"They really mean business, don't they" Cameron looked at the others, his normal smile gone from his face. All of them realised the seriousness of what Thor was saying.
"After the destruction of their galaxy. we believe that they worked in secret, never revealing who they were to other races. The Furlings are a patient race, they are quite willing to wait millions of years if it means they can achieve their goal. A few of us now believe that the Furlings were the ones responsible for the plague that killed most of the Ancients."
"If the Furlings are capable of doing all of this, why have a alliance with them in the first place?" Knowing what he did about the Ancients and the Asgard, Daniel knew that something must of happened to make the Furlings do what they did.
"Like us the Furlings showed in interest in science and knowledge. They had great concern for the lesser races. Throughout the alliance we developed a connection with them, each unique to each species. I believe that they were genuine in the beginning but that ultimately their desire for knowledge out weighed their desire to help others. They began to desire knowledge over all else, even over the lives of others."
"So why are they here? If they seek knowledge over all else, what possible knowledge could we have that would make them interested in us?" Daniel had a feeling he knew what the answer was, he just hoped he was wrong.
"That I do not know."
Vala went up to Daniel and punched him in the arm.
"Ow! What was that for?" said Daniel glaring at Vala and rubbing his arm.
"This is all your fault. If you hadn't found that bloody ninth chevron we wouldn't be in this mess. You're the one that thought we find another entity here. Well you were right, except it wasn't the entity! Its a bunch of suicidal, mass murderers who have the patience of a god! Coming here was Sooo not a good idea." With that Vala went and sat down in a chair, arms crossed, glaring at Daniel.
Daniel and the others all stared at her. None of them could remember seeing Vala this angry in a long time, she had actually yelled at Daniel.
Seeing that the others were all looking at her with sympathy and some agreement on what she had just said, Vala felt some of the anger disappear. God that had felt good, she thought.
"So is it time for Option B?" she asked, looking at Jack and Cameron, "Because I vote for leaving as fast as we can, maybe if we go away they'll forget all about us?"
"You mean get the hell out of Dodge," said Cameron, turning to Jack, "It might not be a bad idea, assuming we have enough systems on-line to fly out. And assuming that they will let us go, that part I'm not so sure of."
"With Thor's help I might be able to get propulsion. Though I'm kind of curious as to what knowledge the Furlings think we have." Suddenly a thought occurred to Sam. "You don't think it's something to do with the Entity? I mean that's what we came here for."
"What is this entity, that you have mentioned?"
Daniel glanced at the hologram, he had forgotten for a minute that it was still on. "Sam's talking about the entity that Doctor Shaw found on P7X-636. There was an underground cavern with a memorial made of nine pillars. One of the pillars had Asgard writing on it."
Thor or at least the hologram Thor, moved forward almost touching Daniel. Daniel almost took a step back, he hadn't expected that the hologram would move like that. Thor stood staring intently at Daniel. "You... you went there? It was still alive?" Thor spoke in hushed tones and it seemed as if he was about to cry.
"Thor, you okay?" asked Jack, then realized how stupid that sounded, it was a hologram for gods sake. It was not the real Thor.
Daniel bent down, staring directly at Thor. In all in dealings with the real Thor, he had never seen him like this. A hologram couldn't show emotion, could it? "Yes it was, at least part of it was. It made contact with Doctor Shaw before it died."
Thor turned to Anna going up to her. Anna went down on her knees to look at Thor directly. Thor's hand reached out almost touching her before pulling away "It communicated with you?"
"Yes."
"Then you are indeed honored. It sacrificed itself to try and save us."
"It thought it had failed you."
"No it did not fail us. We are ones who failed it. In the end each of us chose our own path"
Looking at Thor and seeing our deeply respectful and sad he appeared to be, Anna suddenly realized what had happened. What the entity had been trying to tell her.
~*~*~*~