Ace In The Hole
Chapter 57
"How's it going?"
"Are you kidding me?" Caleb sighs as he drops down into the chair opposite his wife.
"Good or bad?" Jeanie says with a query smile
"Well lets see" He opens a huge file of paper work causing Jeanie to laugh, but the laughter quickly subsides and is replaced by a concerned frown when he removes only 3 sheets of paper and closes the file.
"What?"
"Only 3 applications" Caleb sighs frustratedly
"Three, but why? I thought there was a massive amount of interest back home"
"There is" Caleb sighs frustratedly "That is until they read about the salary or should I say lack of salary"
"I never thought about that" Jennie sighs
"Yeh, well neither did any one else" he smiles weakly.
"Money?" Alex asks looking slightly surprised.
"We have to come up with something" Sheppard frowns at the small smile creeping across Alex's face before sighing deeply "You're gonna tell me that the Ancients worked to better themselves and all that Trekie shit"
"Working to better oneself and all of mankind is a noble sentiment Colonel" Alex says causing Lorne to laugh from in the kitchen.
"Lexy stop trying to freak him out for gods sake!" he finally shouts causing Alex to grin.
"To be honest Colonel the star trek idea is noble but in the end there as always been a need for some sort of basic remuneration even if it is just a token, no one no matter how evolved they are, really likes to work for nothing no matter how much they may love their job" a frown creases his brow before he sighs deeply "I have to be truthful and say that the Ancients would have abhorred the extreme capitalism that is rampant on Earth at the moment, it promotes greed, and selfishness and in the end polarises society into to halves the haves and have nots, the Ancients had a more subtle and refined way of doing things"
"Such as?" Lorne asks as he comes back into the room chewing on a sandwich.
"The basics, the necessities needed to live, shelter, food, medical care they were all provided free to everyone, if someone wished to spend their lives sitting around doing nothing they could it was that individuals choice, but in the end they got nothing more than the basics needed to live"
"What about everyone else?"
"Those that put in a productive days work, be they farmer, labourer, doctor, teacher, artist so long as their day had meaning and bettered themselves or society as a whole, got credits in return"
"Which could be spent on?"
"Anything and everything, but because most of the big things in life were controlled and run by the state or could just be synthesised the only real things of any true value were small hand made items"
"You're saying that the Ancients were basically a big arts and crafts society" Lorne grins surprised
"I guess that's one way of looking at it, your paintings for instance, they are one of a kind, hand made by you, you create them because of your love of art not for any kind of profit, therefore they would have been considered a thousand times more valuable than say any hyperdive or shield emitter that could be easily replicated"
"This is all well and good but that doesn't exactly help us in the here and now" Sheppard sighs
"No it doesn't" Alex smiles "but Earth itself will soon have to realise that matter synthesizers that can produce tonnes of gold from thin air have made basing a planetary economy on a single material ridiculous" he shrugs "Unless of course you pick the one known material that can not be synthesized, which also happens to be the one material that is possibly the most useful"
"Naquadah?" Sheppard says smugly until seeing Alex's smirk.
"No Colonel, Neutronium"
"I've heard of it but..." Lorne shrugs
"It would be periodic number 0 on your table and is basically a super dense substance composed purely of neutrons that can only be created in the dying core of a Neutron Star"
"What can it be used for?"
"It's got loads of uses, power generation, armour, weapons, construction you name it, The Ancients called it the highest of the high four"
"High four?"
" Carbon, Neutronium, Naquadah, and Trinium" Alex smiles and stretches his arms indicating the city around them "They are the eventual building blocks of any and all advanced races to date"
"Aren't we are kind of getting off target again" Lorne says gaining Alex's attention "Long term that's all well and good, but right here and now is where we have the cash flow problem"
"We can't get people, well we can't get the kind of people that we actually want, to up sticks and move to another galaxy without being able to offer them a decent wage in return"
"I get it I do" Alex sighs but you have to understand Earth's economy is also in a precarious position at the moment" Sheppard frowns struggling to understand "Gold, platinum, silver, diamonds, rubies, sapphires all the material items that your world bases its economy on can be synthesized, once matter synthesizers become common knowledge Earth's economy will collapse, Eden is in the prime position to prevent it whilst..."
"You know where to find some of this Neutronium?" Lorne asks with a grin.
"Eden has some particularly large deposits, Its one of the reasons it was picked, we can kick start Eden's economy by trading the Neutronium here with Earth thus safe guarding both worlds immediate future, it could also promote a wave research and development on Earth thus preventing any economic collapse long term"
"It'll take time to implement but its a start"
"You know sometimes I just wish we had a fast forward button" Lorne chuckles as he jumps up headed for the loo.
"Fast forward?" Sheppard repeats quietly suddenly a million miles away for a few seconds before jumping up and heading for the door "Won't be long, I've just had an idea I need to see Rodney about" he says with a wave.
"Where he gone?" Lorne asks looking confused at Sheppard's sudden departure when he returns moments later.
"He had an idea"
"What about now?
"I hate to think" Alex sighs.
A few days later "Well?" Sheppard asks impatiently.
"I can't believe that it's actually working" Rodney stares at the data being displayed on the pad currently in his hand
"All of them?"
"No, two are indicating stress fracturing and one is growing irregularly but the remaining nine crystals are over 75% grown"
"I still do not entirely understand what you pair have been up to for the past 5 days" Teyla says glancing at Ronon for support
"Don't look at me" he shrugs.
"The Sanctuary on PX9-019"
"The place that the Colonel was trapped" Teyla says noticing Sheppard involuntarily wince at the memory.
"It's basically a sophisticated time dilation device, we used a malp to digitally map the area the other side of the barrier and an automated repair drone was sent in to lay a loop of track"
"It goes in does a 500 meter loop and comes back out, nothing fancy" Sheppard grins
"What possible use is this?"
"Time in side is passing at an accelerated rate, we can load something like oh I don't know such as a shield crystal geogravic chamber for instance, onto a cart, we set it at the correct speed and because its non organic it will go in travel around the loop and come back out, on the outside only 16 hours will pass but we can time it so that the chamber will have been in there two years"
"And this will work?"
"So far" Sheppard grins "the chambers are Lantian designed so the failure rate has come down drastically to what the SGC is getting"
"What about the Wraith? Is this not now another world that we need to protect?" Teyla sighs
"I don't think so"
"The Wraith already know of the Sanctuary they seem to actively avoid it"
"They'd get trapped in there as easily as us, but just in case they do go snooping around the entrance the tracks are camouflaged" Rodney smiles at Teyla's frown and nods toward the screen, he calls up a small video file on his laptop that is obviously shot just outside the sanctuary doorway, it clearly shows the stone slabs on the floor slide apart to reveal a rail before McKay appears on camera grinning [Cool eh?]
"Of course this can be used to speed up anything we need to" Sheppard says with a smile
"You thought of this?"
"The idea was mine but Rodney made it work" Sheppard shrugs.
"Well done" Teyla smiles "But I'm afraid that now it just leaves us with one unanswered question"
"What's that?" Rodney frowns
"Who's going to go?"
"Go where?"
"Who's going to be the one to go and rescue the Destiny" Sheppard sighs.
"I can't do this, it's not fair" Sheppard says pacing back and forth in front of the huge panoramic windows of their quarters.
"It makes sense" Evan says with a sigh.
"Why the hell can't Alex go?"
"John" Evan smiles at him tenderly
"I know but what if.."
"Nothing is gonna happen to me"
"Billions of light years Ev!"
"At the end of the day there is only a few of us that can go" Evan chuckles "Pilot, Scientist and Medic" Evan shrugs "You and Rodney are needed here and Jennifer is not gonna go without Rodney so really there's not much choice"
"It's just that I'd have preferred it not to be the guy I'm in love with" John blushes and cant look Evan in the eye, Evan jumps up and throws his arms around him.
"Me, Dr Cairns and Carson it'll be a synch, the three musketeers"
"More like the three stooges" Sheppard smiles weakly
"Come on flyboy, the kids finish school in just over an hour and I'm not gonna be able to have my wicked way with you again for almost 6 months"
"Charmer" John chuckles as Evan drags him off up the stairs.
"Are you excited?"
"Excited, Nervous, Terrified" Cairns chuckles nervously taking the cup of coffee from Alex as he sits down.
"The Dagger is a clever efficient design" Alex says in between sipping his drink.
"Thanks, we just decided to copy a masterpiece" Cairns says with a warm smile noting Alex's blush "Five million years and compliments are still hard to take I see" Alex grins and nods remaining silent "Any plans while I'm gone?"
"You are kidding me right?" Alex sighs "Now that Evan has figured out that Cal could replicate a seeder ships gate production unit they no longer have to wait to get a seeder ship, but of course that now means I no longer have an excuse for not setting to work on modifying the gates"
"You know what? I just don't get that"
"What?"
"Why you have such a problem with working on the gates" Alex frowns and sighs deeply thinking for a minute how to answer.
"The gate network was never intended to be a mass transportation system, it was designed to allow the free flow of knowledge and information, to facilitate trade and diplomacy allow ideas to spread"
"Can't it be both?" Cairns shrugs
"David" he sighs "I don't think you realise"
"No, I think you are the one not seeing it" he smiles at Alex's surprise "You weren't angry at the smaller intergalactic gates we found to the ZPM charger or the micro gates that power the machine itself"
"It's actually called a Potentium" he mumbles "but no that didn't really bother me, I guess they serve a purpose"
"McKay seems to think that these, Gamma gates operate on a different frequency?"
"And?"
"There has to be more than just two frequencies that the gates are capable of operating on?" he asks it as a question but has to smile inwardly at seeing Alex nod unconsciously agreeing with the assessment.
"Your point being?"
"The more specialized secondary networks that you set up the more you free the original gate network up to do its assigned task, you're enhancing the system as a whole not detracting from its over all worth"
"Specialized networks?"
"Sheppard and McKay want these gamma gates working for fighter support, a purely military network but surly you could just as easily set up another system for say mass transit"
"What? like a train?"
"Sorta yeh, hell you could solve Teyla's school issue in one sweep, create a network for mass transit of people maybe another for cargo and so on, the gate network is a wondrous miracle of technology but surly creating multiple specialised networks is the next logical step forward"
"You have given this far to much thought" Alex smiles "I'm not sure David" Alex sighs "It sounds so..."
"Crazy?"
"No" he finally smiles "Human"