Honestly, I found out can't cram everything I've planned into an episode-long story, so I'll just continue writing until the resolution. Sorry for such a long delay.
ACT 6
Daniel blinked, letting his eyes recover from the flash, and looked around to see where he ended up.
He was in a spacious but lightly-furnished room, overall resembling the interiors of Atlantis: grey, with high-tech-looking parts sticking out of the walls here and there. A large screen was mounted into the wall to his left, with a similarly grey sofa in front of it. Right next to him stood a small transparent table; on top of it was an equally transparent plate of differently-colored pills and a glass of water. The wall in front of him was not as much of a wall as a wall-sized four-sectioned window kept in near-perfect cleanliness. Through the window, Daniel could see the city of the Aschen, lit by a sunset.
Suddenly, he heard Melia's voice, coming from behind, sounding serious and melancholic. "Don't drink the water. I forgot why."
Daniel turned around. Melia stood there, wearing a standard issue bluish-grey Aschen shirt and trousers. She was tinkering with a floor-mounted device that was clearly an Aschen transporter — except some of the panels of its casing were removed, and Melia was reaching inside it with a weird-shaped tool looking like a cross between a small hammer and a screwdriver.
The wall behind her visibly contrasted with the other walls, full of hasty, incoherent writing in Ancient. Daniel glanced at the section of the scripture that seemed to have been made in the greatest hurry.
You
are Melia, you wrote this
Atlantis Lantea Pegasus SG-1 Earth
Sleepers
Latch onto your memories
Dream
"Uh, what the — " started Daniel, but was immediately interrupted as Melia unexpectedly jumped back.
"No, no, no!" she exclaimed. "I'm losing them, I'm losing them!" She pointed at the wall to Daniel's right, "Press that button now! On the left side, right under the line! Quick!"
"Who, me?"
"No, me," Melia said sarcastically, irritated, as she pressed and held down two buttons on the transporter at once. "Because I secretly have an extendable arm to reach it with. Press it now, or they'll die!"
Daniel jumped to the wall and held down the button. He looked at the transporter with wild eyes, but nothing visible happened, only the lights on its front panel slightly changed positions. Melia released the buttons and sighed with relief.
"That was close. Your companions are saved."
"What do you mean, saved?" asked Daniel, puzzled. "Were they in danger in the forest?"
"By saved, I mean saved. In here," Melia pointed at the transporter, calming down. "Since you were the only one who would ask me questions instead of shooting me on sight, it was hardly a matter of choice..."
"What about the ship?"
Melia shrugged. "Still there, I believe... wherever you just were. As a reminder to never hide from a Lantean on a Lantean ship. Anyway, back to your mission — "
"I understand now," said Daniel. "I found out what they really are..."
"You did? Well, less for me to explain, I guess," smirked Melia, as she took Daniel's hand and made a sign for him to follow her to the window.
After the two reached the window, for a few minute the two just stood in front of the window, looking at the sun drifting under the horizon. Daniel noticed that Melia was breathing heavily. Suddenly, lights turned on in the room behind them, casting a reflection of the room on the window and pulling Melia out of her semi-absent look.
"Fascinating people, aren't they?" she said, turning to Daniel. "After using that life-seeder on Dakara that you so magnificently wasted, many of the remaining Anqueetas went to a submersible city, sort of a proto-Atlantis... Then one day, somebody gets a bright idea that all the disasters so far happened because the rest of his people were more selfish than he was, and if only they were open to his teachings, it would magically solve all of the galaxy's problems!" Melia caught her breath, releasing Daniel's hand. "Well, guess what, he creates an amnesia virus, lets it free, and thinks that when everyone's minds are wiped to a blank slate, he'll come out of hiding and definitely teach them good. Except the virus caught him as well." She grinned. "Oops!"
"Those were the ancestors of the Aschen?" asked Daniel.
Melia nodded. "Dangerous way of thinking, really dangerous... And see where it went. I know little of what happened next, actually, my head feels somewhat... hollow. Some of this story was there, and now it's gone. Their planet Lythe, which you knew as P4C-970, was quite a monument to our past. I dug there, metaphorically speaking, when ascended, it was an archeological goldmine, you'd die of happiness." She winked at Daniel. "All gone now, into that black hole, and with it parts of Anqueetas and Aschen history we'll never know now. Nice job breaking it, heroes."
Daniel lowered his eyes, not daring to look directly at Melia, staying fixated on the pristine, unnaturally shiny floor instead. "Don't you know at least something?" he asked defeatedly.
"Well, not know per se, but you can probably imagine — people without memories find themselves stuck for millennia in a strange city, technological marvel it may be, but decidedly utilitarian-looking. And only water around it, they were on the seafloor. You've seen how grey Atlantis is, well, that was even worse. Then power goes out, suddenly the city rises to the surface, but by that time their culture's formed already. And suddenly they have to tend to themselves. See where this is going?"
Daniel scratched his head. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Aha!" Melia raised her right hand and clicked her fingers. "Spot on. Problem is, I have no idea what to do with the Aschen, myself. We Lanteans have always been bad about this, changing existing things instead of creating from scratch. It's you Earthans who've excelled at that. Sometimes I wonder..." she narrowed her eyes and bit her lower lip, "if only back then, when leaving Atlantis, Elizabeth came with us and we had that bit of Earthan defiance... Perhaps our civilization could survive, and all of history since then would be very different."
"Yes, I heard about that from Morgan," said Daniel, and Melia barely visibly shuddered at the mention of that name. "How you found Earth and its people too primitive to rebuild there, and instead spent the last of your days seeking ascension."
Melia's creepy smile faded, she crossed her legs, and her voice became more melancholic and affectionate. "Ganos did not tell you everything. The main issue was that we left Atlantis in a rush, not thinking ahead and expecting to find ourselves in the relative safety of the Antarctic outpost. Instead we emerged out of the wrong gate, right in the middle of Ra's domain. The Goa'uld had taken over Earth by then — maybe we could wage war, but we lacked knowledge of the enemy, and there would not be much left of us. We were broken, and you could say we... shut ourselves to the conflict around us, philosophied our way out."
"But some of you eventually turned away from ascension," noted Daniel, continuing to look around the room.
"Ascension..." echoed Melia, rubbing her left eye irritatedly. "Come to think of it, so did you. It's a double-edged sword, really. You get the big picture, you have, potentially, the whole universe open to exploration, all that vast knowledge... and nobody to share it with. When everything became possible to us, everything lost significance, and we met a dead end. We looked at mundane matters with disdain, but that was where everything that really mattered was — and they forgot about us too."
She paused. "And while we can't die, we fear to lose ourselves. Without a body, just... as a consciousness, if you don't have a clear sense of self, no idea of what makes you you... eventually you just dissolve in the indistinct choir. Many of us didn't realize it until too late. The Ori fell into this trap even more quickly than us... it wasn't until the Orici that they... or rather, she as the last of them... got a sense of individuality again." Melia's eyes filled with sorrow and regret. "And then when she was fighting Ganos, I descended them, in space, with no means to survive, on the orders of the equally indistinct Others. Perhaps that was the turning point... or maybe you geniuses pushed me over the edge, or both, I'm not sure now."
Melia moved her arms suddenly, as if snapping out of a trance. She looked at Daniel, who se eyes seemed to be fixated on the transporter for some time now. "Speaking of which." she added as her unnatural, somewhat arrogant smile returned. "The rest of you..."
She walked to the transporter and pressed another button. Mitchell, Teal'c, Vala and Deschar materialized in the room, looking disoriented. Having recovered from it, the three members of SG-1 simultaneously pointed their guns at Melia, prompting Daniel to stand between her and his teammates and stretch his arms.
Teal'c slanted his head and raised an eyebrow, but nevertheless lowered his zat. The others followed suit. Melia remained stern, only letting out a disdainful "hmnh".
"Jackson?" inquired Mitchell, looking annoyed more at Daniel than Melia. "What's happening? Whose side is she on?"
"The more important thing to decide is," said Melia, walking out of Jackson's cover, "whose side we are all on, if it's the same side indeed. And if it's the same as that of the rebels, and your... Stargate Command itself. Because you see, I think you might be accidentally unaware of what kind of people you face." With these words, she approached the Aschen captive and told him in a matter-of fact fashion, "Punch me in the belly."
Deschar looked confused by the request, but complied, striking Melia's stomach with his right fist with such force that she fell onto the floor, groaning. Now everyone looked bewildered except Daniel, who was looking at Melia with sympathy and concern.
She struggled to stand up, and asked Deschar weakly, "Now, what do you... think I feel?"
The Aschen blinked and stared at her with blank eyes, reacting as if the very nature of the question was alien to him. "I cannot know," he said.