Chapter 24

The Second Race

***Milky Way Galaxy (Local Spur Arm)***

**Dead Space (Satellite's Projected Course)**

*Paciscor of Nex (Living Quarters)*

The door to their room slid open after having been sealed shut for so long. The assembled Humans and Jaffa all turned to the door that now looked out into a small entranceway like an airlock. With a quiet 'swoosh' another door opened within that entranceway and a series of racks folded out of the small closet within. On the racks were their weapons, armor, grenades, and extra ammo as well as anything else they had been wearing when they were beamed into the ship's Brig.

"That's just a bit convenient, don't you think?" Vala asked.

"Indeed," Teal'c replied as he, nevertheless, stepped forward, grabbed his gear, and loaded a clip into one of the pistols on the rack.

The others, not sensing any danger in doing so, grabbed their gear as well. As Cameron finished strapping the last of his gear onto his vest, the outer door in the 'airlock' opened into the ship at large. Cam stepped out and the lights immediately started shutting off until only a single pathway was clearly illuminated. "It's your call, boss," Cam said while looking at O'Neill.

"Let's see what they want," Jack replied as he stepped into the hall after Cam. Normally Jack would ask why the Lieutenant-Colonel had worn a full combat load out while aboard the Odyssey, but now it meant that he, unlike the others, still had his P-90 as opposed to just a side-arm.

*Paciscor of Nex (Auxiliary Bio-Lab)*

"Feeling any better?" Widget asked, a small smile on his face as Sam opened her eyes. Sam answered his question by grabbing the heaviest object in her reach and hurling it at the alien's head. To her surprise, the object passed through his body with a clunk as it hit the far wall. "You hurt my feelings," Widget in a disappointed tone, that weird crackling sound still present in his voice.

"What are you?" Sam asked.

"Why did you do that?" Widget countered. The two just sat there, staring at each other, as both tried to figure out the other. "Okay, I get it, you don't trust me, but I'm trying to help!" the alien argued as Sam got up and ran for the door. She was, once again, surprised when the door actually opened when she hit the button next to it. Her third surprise came when Widget was already standing out in the hall waiting for her. "Can we be civil about this?" he asked in a disappointed tone.

Sam turned and looked back into the room she had ran out of and saw the alien still standing there. He waved at her as if to say, 'Yeah, it's real.'

"What are you?" Sam asked again.

"My name is Wid'getchro'monsure, so I'm sure you can understand why people call me 'Widget'," he replied with a smile. "As for what I am… well, we've met before, Colonel Carter, you just haven't realized it yet. The answer is, quite literally, standing right in front of you."

Sam stood there, thinking it over. She analyzed everything until it all made sense. Then her eyes widened in shock. "You're the AI!" she exclaimed.

"Bravo!" Widget applauded. Logically Sam knew that his holographic hands weren't making any noise as he brought them together, but the sound still appeared to be coming from him. Then again, the Asgard had similar technology so it wasn't that surprising. "What's the first question that comes to mind?" the AI asked her excitedly.

"What do you want?" Sam asked.

"To take you back to your people!" the AI replied with that same enthusiasm. "Regrettably, I'm currently in the process of repairing the internal transportation system," Widget replied while looking off into the distance. Sam assumed he was monitoring multiple systems at once and that the system in question was off in that direction. "The rapid cargo transit stations are still working, though, so we can use them. I'll take you to the CIC and introduce you to my CO. He can fill you in on things that I'm not authorized to speak of." When Sam just stood there, not moving, the AI sighed and snapped his fingers. A holographic screen appeared beside him showing what had to be a camera feed. "They're perfectly fine and on their way to the same place we are. Regrettably, the speakers and projectors in that area are damaged so I can't speak to them. I'm guiding them around by turning off the lights in the areas I don't want them to be in. Primitive, I know, but at least it's working. So, will you follow me now?"

"Where's my radio?" Sam asked as she noticed that the others had their gear.

"It was stored with the rest of the equipment taken from you. I believe that one is wearing your vest," Widget replied while zooming in on Jack. "Can we please start moving? The sooner the six of you are back together the sooner they'll stop thinking you're dead."

"Why do they think I'm dead?" Sam asked in a worried tone.

"Because they haven't seen you in twelve and a half hours," the AI replied calmly.

"Fine," Sam relented.

"Finally!" Widget exclaimed in that same, entirely too happy tone as he led the way. After a few minutes of silence, he said, "You can ask me anything you want to. As long as you have the clearance for it, I'll answer your questions."

As an AI, he loved giving her permission to ask questions. Sam was not only curious, she was also smart enough to hold a conversation with the AI. As a person, his personality matrix was slightly annoyed by the onslaught of questions. Sometimes the AI in him really hated the organic in him.

*Paciscor of Nex (Unknown Hallway)*

"Another long corridor," Mitchell said with a huff as they turned a corner and started down another extremely long hallway. "All this walking is getting on my nerves. If the goal is to wear us out before we get to where we're going, they're winning."

"Quiet, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c ordered, holding up a hand to quiet the whole group.

"I hear it too," Jack said as they neared the far end of the hallway. They reached the doorframe to the next part of the ship and all they could see through the darkness was a massive tunnel running perpendicular to the hallway they were in. Across the massive gap was another docking station just like the one they were standing at. The whole setup reminded him of the subways on Earth. "Wow," Jack said as he took in the massive tunnel.

A second later, a bright light appeared in the distance. Not even two seconds later, a train came barreling into what had to be a loading station and silently slid to a halt. The doors hissed open and SG-1 stacked up, ready to storm the train and take it by force. Inside of the train, they could hear voices. Straining his ears, Jack could make out the sounds of a conversation as what sounded like two people sat on the train chatting. A male voice was speaking clear English saying something about wormholes and FTL drives. The technological lingo was lost on the General as he eased around the corner.

Then he heard a female voice respond. A female voice he was quite familiar with. "I'm still wrapping my head around the concept of a ship like this being powered by only four generators. The Asgard only use four, sure, but their ships are a fraction of the size of this one!" Sam's voice said, truly baffled.

With a smile in its tones and a crackle in its voice, the male replied. "Well, when you can harness the power of a star, you can do a lot with a little."

A burst of light lit up the train and Jack and the others ducked into cover. Looking around the low wall he was crouched behind, Jack could see Sam and an unknown man standing by a holographic image of the ship, five large spheres highlighted in its design.

"At the center of the ship is the CIC, that's this sphere," the man explained as the central sphere was highlighted. "The other four spheres are the power cores. Each one holds a protostar in a containment field. The sphere itself is made of special, radiation absorbent, semi-organic material that actually takes the energy being forced into it by the radiation of the protostar and uses it as a source of power. We also harness the thermal energy, photonic energy, photoelectric energy, and our weapons derive their plasma from the star's mass."

"What?" Sam asked. The way she sounded, so curious and full of life, had Jack sighing in relief. She sounded a lot better.

"Our plasma cannons are ancient, and I do mean ANCIENT! We built them before Humans had brains capable of contemplating the fact that they were living creatures, and, yes, I'm exaggerating that by more than a small margin. Needless to say, there have been advances since their conception," the man said with a small chuckle. "The Asgard, for example, use flash-forged plasma in their cannons. We just use the plasma already made available by the protostars to eliminate the need. It also helps keep the protostars stable. If they start destabilizing, we can channel plasma from one to another or eject it into space in the form of a weapon."

"Why not upgrade then?" Sam asked.

"This ship has been in stasis for more than… uh… I think it would be around three-million years in keeping with your standards of chronological recording intervals. At any rate, if you would like to, General, you can come and join us."

Sam looked up at his words as Jack and the others stormed around the corner. Jack's borrowed weapon was snapped up in an instant as he sighted down the barrel and took aim. "Sam," Jack half-asked.

"Don't bother," Sam replied before kicking her leg out. Her foot passed through the man's leg and his whole body shimmered as a result. "It's a hologram."

Jack slowly lowered his pistol and eyed the alien. "What's going on here?" Jack asked.

"If you take a seat, I'll gladly explain," the alien said while motioning to the empty seats that lined the train's walls.

Before he could begin, however, Sam asked, "How fast does this train move?"

"Let's see," the alien mused. "Humans measure speed as distance traveled over a unit of time so… how long would you say this ship is from stem to stern?"

"Ten kilometers," Sam replied.

"So the ship is divided into ten equal sections?" the alien asked to which Sam nodded. "Then we can traverse each section in ten… uh, you call them seconds so that puts us at one kilometer per ten seconds?"

"Yes, but you want the time variable to be 'one,' so you'd change the distance to either a decimal or a lesser value. Instead of one kilometer per ten seconds, we would say point-zero-one kilometers per second, one-hundredth of a kilometer per second, or one-hundred meters per second," Sam explained.

"You're teaching him?" Jack asked, more than a little confused as to why Sam would be discussing things like this when they were clearly being held prisoner.

"He's actually not that bad," Sam replied casually.

"Carter… we're being held against our will," Jack stressed.

"Only because Sieon's a militaristic asshole," the alien snarked. "Here's how that plaid out," he continued as the train took off. It didn't even take a full second to reach its top speed and the dampeners on the train made the ride very smooth. "He picks up the Asgard Computer Core on your ship while I'm busy overseeing the repairs and decides to hack your systems instead of opening a communications channel. I think his brain is broken to be honest. Military natured or not, you don't piss off the First Race by hacking their computers, and, by extension, attacking their allies. The Asgard wouldn't stand for that. You know…"

"The First Race?" Daniel asked. "Why are the Asgard the First Race?"

"The Asgard were the ones who proposed the alliance between their race and the Furlings during the war with the Nox. Because of that, the Asgard are the First Race and the Furlings are the Second Race. Sometime during the war, the Alterans came in and brokered the peace treaty so they're the Third Race and the Nox are the Fourth with the Tau'ri being the Fifth."

"Wait, you know who the Furlings are?" Vala asked.

Once again, Widget was torn between his computerized personality and his organic one. He really needed to delete that other half, but that's where his morals were so he wasn't allowed to. Damned organics! "Of course I do. I am one."

"You were at war with the Nox?!" Daniel all but shouted. The news of the being before them being a Furling wasn't even that hard to believe. Only one of the Great Races could've taken on the Ori like that and won.

There was another smooth applications of brakes as the train came to a stop and everyone disembarked in the wake of their guide. They followed the holographic image of the Furling as it led them through the ship. "They weren't always pacifists," Widget replied with a look of shame on his face. "But that's a part of our history that no one likes talking about."

"You can't drop a bombshell like that then refuse to tell us what happened!" Daniel protested.

"Actually, I'd be happy to explain it to you in full, but we've arrived at the CIC," Widget countered.

Jack was just about to say that a dead-end hallway was hardly a Combat Information Center. Then the wall split apart before them and revealed a large, domed chamber with a chair in the center of it like the one in Antarctica, but obviously not Ancient by design. The smooth, featureless walls were covered in displays, all of them holographic and all of them hovering over a control station. There had to be twenty stations equally spaced around the room, and, at one of them, there stood a figure that matched their guide to the very last strand of holographic hair.

Sieon was busy fixing another downed system, Widget standing behind him complaining about the lack of resources they had, when he heard the doors to the CIC open. He wiggled his way out from being waist-deep in the guts of a computer and took in the six figures standing at the doors to his domain.

Sieon grit his teeth and tried not to growl at the intrusion before rounding on the AI. "You could have told me you were bringing them here," Sieon said in his native tongue.

"Why? So that you could order me to not to?" Widget shot back, clearly angry.

"There's two of you," Vala noted as she took in the man and his double.

"It's a hologram, Vala, there has to be an original," Daniel replied.

"Not exactly," Sam added in a tone that said she wasn't sure how to explain this one. When the alien standing before them and the one standing across the room spoke at the same time, both of them saying different things in different languages, it made it a bit easier. "He's actually just a holographic representation of the ship's AI. There could be a hundred of him without there ever being a physical form."

"Technically the ship is my physical form," Widget replied while glaring at the other him arguing with the man at the far end of the room.

"It doesn't sound good," Sam pointed out.

Widget laughed at her statement then spoke an angry sounding sentence in his native language. He then asked, "Would you believe me if I told you that I had just said you have pleasingly pigmented ocular receptors?"

"What?" Vala asked.

"He complimented her eyes," the alien said from across the room as he walked over. "As it has been thoroughly explained to me…" the alien said while glaring at the AI standing behind him. Apparently there was some difference between the two avatars the others couldn't see. "I owe you all an apology. I… had friends amongst the Asgard. To know they're gone is depressing, to say the least, and I'm not exactly the trusting type either. I had it in my head that you stole the Core from them. No matter how ridiculous that may seem now, I'm known to be a bit hardheaded."

"By 'a bit' he means he was voted the most hardheaded asshole of the year three years in a row," Widget added with small smile, his double dissolving into nothingness across the room.

"That's not a real thing," Sieon assured them with a roll of his eyes.

"Aliens do that too?" Vala asked Daniel at a whisper. Daniel just shrugged in reply.

"I'm sure you're all wondering why you're here so… where should I start?" Sieon asked.

"Why did you abduct us?" Jack asked, obviously more than a little pissed.

"Like I said, I had it in my head that you had stolen the Core," Sieon replied simply.

*Paciscor of Nex (Combat Information Center) [a few hours later]*

"As unnecessary as it may be, I advise you to avoid any further forceful impacts with structures more durable than yourself until after you've increased the rigidity of your corporeal form," Widget finished with a shit-eating grin as a small medical droid finished unwrapping his hand.

Cameron resisted the urge to roll his eyes and flexed his fully healed fingers before thanking the AI. The first half hour of their conversation with a real, living Furling was full of apologies and minor explanations. After that, Sieon was given a thorough briefing on Earth and the final bits of information they had on the Asgard. He was understandably interested in the species the Asgard had seen fit to give the title of the Fifth Race. Now they were getting geared up for the part that Cam had been waiting for since they got to the CIC.

"Well, you know us well enough now, so what's your story?" Daniel asked.

Sieon let out a sarcastic huff and sat back in his chair. "My childhood, I assure you, is a thoroughly riveting tale of lackluster love and infuriation. I was the first born son of two, but I wasn't anything special. No, it was my brother that got all of the attention. You see, I was born normal, but Widget? He was exposed to a very powerful, arguably rare element while still in the womb. As a result, he was born with telekinetic powers. I know it sounds petty…" Sieon began before Sam cut him off.

"Does that mean that your AI is named after your brother?" Sam asked.

"Yes," Widget replied with a glare at the Furling, "and it sucks because I'm expected to be something I'm not."

"How so?" Teal'c asked.

"I'm a computer," Widget replied. "Having a computerized mind makes me love learning. Being an AI means I have a perfect memory and can learn anything I want to. Having a half-organic mind pisses me off because organics find learning to be tiresome and annoying. It's like having a three year old child sitting behind you constantly complaining. 'Are we done yet?' 'Can't we do something else?' 'I'm bored.' It's the most annoying thing in the world!"

"It's also where his moral values and personality are generated. While he is capable of being, and mostly likely is, radically different from what my brother would be like if he were still alive, his base traits, appearance, morals, and sense of humor are largely influenced by that base coding which was generated by scanning an organic mind and emphasizing the traits we wanted the AIs to have," Sieon added. "In his case, Widget was generated from a scan of my memories of my brother."

"Now, back to him being petty," Widget said, apparently over his anger at having a hybrid mind.

"Right," Sieon agreed. "Widget was born with the ability to manipulate dark matter. This would eventually become known as biotics. Widget studied under Konahrik, the Great War Lord and possibly the oldest living being in known history… his story is one for another time and is filled with a lot of speculation, rumors, and myths. He was a bit enigmatic and a lot of people didn't believe he was real. If I hadn't of met the man, I would've been one of them, but I'm getting off topic.

"Krosis, the greatest medical mind in our race's history, developed a gene therapy that strengthened the body against the Sickness. The Sickness would eventually become known as… uh… how does that translate into their language?" Sieon asked the AI that was everywhere at once. His attention was obviously not all 'here' as Sieon had to ask the question again after getting the AI's attention.

"Sorry, I was tending to… never mind. Host Versus Eezo would be the most adequate comparison."

"What's 'eezo'?" Jack asked.

"Element Zero," Widget replied.

"What's 'element zero'?" Sam added.

"It's an element with an atomic mass of zero, hence the name, and, when exposed to an electrical charge, the element emits a field of energy that actually alters mass within the localized field of space-time. A positive charge increases mass, while a negative charge reduces mass. Using a mass reduction field, we were able to lessen the mass of our ships enough to accelerate them to Faster Than Light speeds using our sub-light engines. The problem was, this form of FTL built up a powerful electrical charge that would kill everyone aboard a ship if it became too great for us to contain. We had to discharge the drive core every few hours or days depending on the class of ship, so the larger the ship the quicker the charge built up. Due to this fact, it was only good for trips between planets within the same nebula or cluster while the FTL Gravity Cannons were our primary form of getting from one cluster, nebula, or area of the galaxy to another."

"The what?" Daniel asked.

"Okay, new rule," Sieon said in a tone of minor frustration. "I'll answer all of your questions, I promise, but that's another story into and of itself. Let's finish the first one then move to the next, shall we?" When there were no objections, he continued. "Biotics eventually became a trait of our race. It was useful in tedious labor as a strength enhancer, allowed people to lift heavier objects, and, when applied on a weaponized scale, allowed for a person to manipulate dark matter with their minds with lethal effects. Observe," Sieon said before his body started glowing.

The light that surrounded him coalesced into a ball in the palm of his hand and started swirling. The gravity in the room shifted as the Singularity pulled them all in. Then Sieon let the glow fade out and gravity went back to normal. "Being able to suspend your targets in the air makes them easy prey, crushing them in high gravity fields is useful, tearing them apart on the molecular level is an effective way to kill just about anything, and stopping bullets with your mind helps keep you alive."

Cameron took in the spectacle and looked over to Jack who simply shook his head in reply to the unasked question. Things had just gotten worse for them. If the Furling did turn out to be hostile, they would be fitting something as powerful as a Prior, but without the anti-prior device.

"That just about sums up the bulk of my childhood. When I was a 'teenager,' as your people would say, my parents basically left me to do whatever I wanted and there was a time when I was a troublemaker. That didn't get me the type of recognition I wanted so I moved on. I devoted myself to my studies, and, eventually, gained the notice of the Scourge…"

"What's a 'Scourge'?" Cam asked curiously.

"Right, that term doesn't translate in your language…" Sieon mumbled. "What's the highest rank in your military's chain of command?"

"A Lieutenant-General," Mitchell replied.

"No, the General of the Air Force out ranks all other Generals, buts the Commander and Chief is still the highest authority," Jack corrected.

"The Commander and Chief has the first and last say in all military decisions?" Sieon asked.

"Well, not exactly. The Commander and Chief is the only person who can declare a state of war, but he's also the president of the country," Sam explained.

"Politicians have no place in a war," Widget said with a shake of his head.

Thinking it over for a moment, Sieon clarified, "Okay, then it's like the Commander and Chief, a General, and an Admiral all rolled into one. The Scourge is the military's law. He has the first and last say in all military decisions. Once elected, he both declares war, and fights in the wars he declares. His job is to bring as many people home safe as is possible. He decides which planets to attack and which to utterly destroy. The only power higher than his or her own, is a unanimous vote from the Grand Council, and the Grand Council's job is to negotiate peace so that the Scourge doesn't have a job to begin with. Typically, if a Scourge has been elected, the people feel that war is so inevitable that they've lost hope for a peaceful resolution."

"Generally speaking, if the Grand Council failed to prevent the war, they tended to stay out of the way when the Scourge started wiping out entire fleets of parties with intentions hostile to our ways of life. Scourge Olaf One-Eye, for example, was allowed to render three entire star systems void of life after a group of hostile up-starters decided to take on the Furling Galactic Space Navy. The war lasted for only two weeks and ended in so decisive a victory that Olaf's war tactics became part of the standard military training all Furling tacticians went through before they were allowed to advise on their first battle," Widget added to help clarify the extremes a Scourge was allowed to resort to.

"Sounds like a dictator," Daniel commented.

"In a way I was one, but the people elected me to be so. There is only one Scourge at any given time and he or she starts at the beginning of a war and quits at the end. A previous Scourge can run for re-election as many times as the people allow him or her to. Our job is to oversee to the survival of our people to the exclusion of all else," Sieon explained.

"It still doesn't sound right," Daniel countered.

"Look at it this way. If the Scourge fails, the people are no longer alive to accuse them of war crimes. Should he or she succeed, however, their every decision is then subject to extreme review, questioning, and, should it be deemed necessary, punishment will be delivered in accordance to Furling High Law. During a war, however, a Scourge is hardly ever interfered with unless their military competence is being called into question," Widget quickly elaborated.

"Take this ship for example," Sieon added. "I ordered this ship built as a command center for the Furling Galactic Space Navy. At the time of its completion, it was the largest and most advanced ship we had ever built and was decades ahead of anything else we had."

"At that time," Widget stressed. "Furling technology is bound to have advanced since we went into seclusion on the world you found us on."

"So you're the head of the military?" Mitchell asked.

"I was the head of the military," Sieon stressed. "The war I oversaw was known as the Fall of the Furlings. I fought my war and I won it… barely… kind of…" Sieon trailed off before refocusing and continuing. "As High Law dictates, I stepped down and the post was left vacant until it would be needed again. After that, I left politics because, once you've been a Scourge, you're banned from ever having a say in 'normal' political matters not pertaining to a war," Sieon replied.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Daniel asked, "So what is the story of the Fall of the Furlings?"

"That is a long and sad story. If you truly want to hear it, we must start at the beginning," Sieon said. "From the standards of the people of this universe, ours was a unique beginning. You see, our homeworld is not in this universe. No, the story of the Furlings begins in an alternate version of this galaxy on a planet called Glacialis. It had massive deposits of iron near the surface that were constantly struck by lightning storms. Because of this, our planet had four magnetic poles, all of them what you would call 'North Poles' with the planet's core being the only 'South Pole.' The large amounts of electromagnetic interference on the planet created problems with our early development of communications equipment.

"Rather than being driven apart and forced into war with neighboring continents, our minds evolved until we were able to hear the thoughts of those around us. The more Furlings there were connected in this way, the larger an area that could be covered. As such, we became a hive-minded species. One planet's population was a Hive, but was more commonly referred to as a Collective. This overcame the problem of communication and allowed our species to advance as one.

"After all, when one person has an idea in a Collective, everyone shares that idea. It gets passed around by a thousand minds, a thousand points of view all giving their opinions in an organized manner. By the time the idea's done being passed around, the bulk of the concerns are ironed out. Imagine if a healthcare professional and an engineer could understand each other perfectly. In such a world, the health risks of building a generator that emits radiation would be known by both the moment it was discovered…" Sieon began before being interrupted.

"Explaining a hive-minded nature to people who have never experienced anything of the sort is nearly impossible," Widget idly commented.

"I'm getting that you can read minds," Daniel said.

"I caught that too," Jack grumbled. "I assume that's how you know our language."

"You assume correctly," Sieon replied in a diplomatic tone. "Don't worry, General, I haven't gone digging around in your memories. As Widget says, you can't truly understand it, but the mind has layers to it. Your personal memories are stored deep within your mind. Your language skills, however, can be found in various layers due to how engraved it is in your very sense of self-being."

"Can we get back to the story now?" Vala asked, clearly unphased by the revelation that their minds were being probed. She had her phone out, undoubtedly taping this in an effort to sell it on the black market later. They'd have to confiscate her phone, but letting her record it would at least make debriefing Landry easier.

Sieon smiled at Daniel as a thought crossed the Human's mind. "I won't go digging in your head, Doctor Jackson. That would be rude. And besides, reading a Human's mind is like learning a new language… for you. For me learning a language is easy. Learning to read a new species mind, however, is as hard for me as learning Ancient would be for Vala."

"Clearly you know something," Sam countered.

"I had to," Sieon replied simply. "If I didn't learn your language, how would I explain that I mean no harm to the Fifth Race?"

"Story time!" Vala said again.

With a shrug, Sieon picked up where he left off. "Skipping forward a few thousand years to when we finally advanced to the point of space travel, we found a vast network of interstellar FTL stations that moved you like a massive gravity cannon big enough for entire fleets to pass through that only connected to one other gravity cannon. Because of this, we never actually needed a hyperdrive. In fact, we never developed the technology. Widget's already told you about our eezo cores and their method of FTL, but that method wasn't valid in this universe without the gravity cannons to get us over larger distances. So we got inventive.

"You all remember the rather ruff vibration a couple hours ago?" As everyone confirmed that they remembered, Sieon continued, "We didn't jump into hyperspace. Instead we essentially opened a rupture in space and…" as he noticed no one understood him he said, "It's like a Stargate, but minus the gate."

"In blatant terms it's a wormhole drive or the perfected version of a Colonial jump-drive," Sam clarified as she found herself being more and more impressed by this ship.

"Yeah, that," Sieon agreed before adding, "Whatever a 'Colonial' is," at a mumble.

"I actually apologize for how ruff that was. The drive hasn't been used in… wow, that long?" the AI said as he checked something no one else could see. "It's been over ten-thousand galactic-standard years. Anyway, I jumped when I did because we needed to leave before the system's star went supernova. Surviving one was hard enough and we're still repairing the damages that the explosion caused. I was not looking forward to being hit like that again."

Clearing his throat and continuing his story, Sieon said, "We had a long era in our history of peaceful exploration, but things started to get complicated when our empire spanned more than just one galactic spiral arm. When we reached that stage, our people became more and more isolated. Star systems would band together because two Collectives within one star system are familiar enough with one another to be at peace, but if another Collective entered their territory… it was a battle of one mind standing against a million. The defending Collective would look into the mind of the newcomer and the pressure of so many minds did one of two things.

"Either you abandoned your views and became a part of their Collective, your previous self ceasing to exist in the process, or your mind was shattered by the force of the Collective and you went insane. Needless to say, if this happened to the wrong person, two Collectives would go to war. Again, you have to understand the nature of a hive-mind to fully grasp why this happened, but I think Vala gets it better than the rest of you."

Without missing a beat, Vala immediately jumped in. "It's like that god awful creation of yours. Your 'Facebook'," Vala said with a note of disgust. "If everyone on Facebook started posting cruel, vile things on your wall, you would start trying to block them. Sad fact is, you can't block everyone so you just keep getting hounded. To get the pressure off of you, you either join them in making fun of someone else, shift the focus and become what you hate, or you're driven to the point of suicide."

The assembled Humans all blinked at Vala in surprise before Cameron finally asked, "What's gotten into you lately?"

"Well, Daniel's been trying to get into my pants for months now and I think he's 'rubbing off on me'," Vala replied with a wink at Daniel.

"No!" Daniel forcefully countered.

"Wow," Jack said with a shake of his head. "Just… wow."

"Clearly I missed something," Sieon observed.

"I believe that was intended as a joke, though I don't understand Human humor enough to say for sure. If I'm wrong and it wasn't a joke, then Vala is most likely pregnant and Doctor Jackson is the father," Widget replied.

"Oh I already had the kid," Vala assured them casually. "She's currently trying to take over the galaxy."

"She means Adria," Widget informed his confused master.

"Ah, I see," Sieon said sadly. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I got over it," Vala replied in a tone that made it clear she was anything but.

Continuing his story, Sieon said, "The result of these isolated incidences was an event known as the Furling Galactic Civil War. Over a dozen star systems were at war with another and the violence was spreading quickly. Anytime someone from one Collective went to another, news of the war spread and people became more and more suspicious. As they did, even simple cargo ship crews were crushed by a Collective's attempts to be sure the people coming to their world weren't hostile. Naturally this led to an evolution in war in which cargo ships became weapons against other worlds.

"The suspicion that consumed every living Furling could be felt from one end of the galaxy to another. The animosity between two Collectives was so fierce that the anger that consumed them could be felt by those on the other end of the galaxy. This led to a discovery. The stronger an emotion felt by a Collective, the further away it can be felt. Our greatest historians used this to their advantage. They learned to block off their minds from those around them then went to every warring Collective and absorbed as much information as they could. Then then brought it back to the Preservation Guild to be analyzed. There was much learned about our culture as a whole in the first fifty years of the FGCW.

"We learned that, when a mother losses her child, the grief she feels is spread to every mind in the Collective because Furlings are an emotional species. When we suffer through pain, we reach out to those around us, and they, in an attempt to comfort us, share our pain until it becomes their own. This is how the death of one leads to a war between thousands, and the death of thousands leads to a war between millions. The Furling Galactic Civil War lasted for seventy-three years and ended with the appointment of Scourge as the first 'Scourge.' As I'm sure you just figured out on your own, the title of Scourge comes from the name of the first person to hold the title.

"The Glacialis Collective was still the largest because our homeworld was the most densely populated planet in our territory. Using this to his advantage, Scourge gathered the members of the Preservation Guild and ordered them to board his ships and spread their knowledge. Each planet is its own Collective and the same can be said for a ship. A well-educated and militaristic Collective has a stronger neural connection with greater range. They also have the advantage of being trained in the art of using the mind as a weapon to cripple their enemy or gather Intel without physical interrogation. Using all of these things, Scourge created hundreds of new Collectives and scattered them across the belligerent portions of the Furling Empire.

"A ship would carry that Collective to a warring Collective and they would use their mental strength to broadcast one message to both sides; understanding. By forcing each side to understand the other's pain and reason for fighting, they realized they were all the same people fighting for the same reason. One side saw the other's pain over the initial loss and the side that lost the destroyed mind was able to see the regret and sorrow of the other Collective over causing them that pain. In the end, only one Collective stood against Scourge. This Collective was different. They weren't fighting because they lost someone, they were fighting because a Twisted lived amongst them."

"Twisted?" Sam asked.

"You would call her a 'serial killer'," Sieon elaborated. "Because a hive-mind shares morals and the Twisted are always stronger than the ones they hunt, the entire Collective was perverted into a death loving, mass murdering, glory seeking warrior sect. During the war against them and Scourge, they learned to shield their minds from others by torturing captured historians and used this skill to infiltrate other Collectives. They would kill whoever they wanted or assassinate high ranking officials then leave.

"This led to a reform in the Furling Galactic Navy. Our soldiers had to be retrained to combat this new type of threat. This is the point in history where I was born. When the war finally ended, nothing was left of the Followers of Sithis, also known as the Dark Brotherhood, except for one ship carrying the last of their kind. Several years went by with seemingly random abductions across the Empire. We would later realize that this was the Brotherhood forcefully recruiting new members. They used the animosity and mistrust of the FGCW to hire themselves out to anyone looking to have another person killed. Thus began the Assassin Hunts. This is the part of our history where Widget was born. Fearing his power falling into the wrong hands, Widget was put under the care of Konahrik and Krosis was tasked with making his power available to everyone.

"Finally we reach a point in our history where we're in a golden age. Biotics are widespread enough to keep the Brotherhood from having an easy time killing any of the officials and a new government was formed. The Grand Collective, later renamed the High Council, consisted of one member from every Collective. Because one understands the needs of all, this was all that was needed to form an effective governing body. An era of true peace made us complacent… then we met our first alien race.

"Proving to be both openly hostile and highly advanced, the aliens attacked us. Negotiations were attempted, but nothing was coming out of the efforts to make peace so the people elected a new Scourge. Olaf One-Eye laid waste to the enemy then was put on trial for war crimes. After winning his trial, he became a teacher at the School of Tactical Sense. No that's not the actual name of the school, but it doesn't translate into your language well. I studied there because the military was all I had left as an option. I was hotheaded, irrational, emotionally driven, and infinitely jealous of my brother. As a result, I became a tactician since I knew he'd become a soldier.

"One more thing about Widget worth mentioning, he's the most powerful biotic the Furlings have ever seen to date. He could move a moon out of orbit and actually did so at one point. The natural satellite slammed into the planet it orbited and the military production capacity for the third hostile alien race we encountered was wiped out. Since it was only a small portion of the military of that species that went rouge, we only destroyed the bases belonging to those sects then had good relations with their peoples. Back to the other side of the story, I became a tactician because I knew that it'd put me in charge of Widget one day. And it did…

"And so begins the story of the Fall. Well, I should say that the Fall happens after another three wars with hostile alien powers which puts us at a total of six wars fought with aliens, and two wars fought amongst ourselves. The second golden era of peace brought on after the last alien war was then brought to an end by an enemy we still don't fully understand. It was a huge machine… Well, I'll be honest, it was ship with technologies we had never seen before that put our most powerful ships to shame, and there was an entire armada of them. So great were their numbers that they could black out the skies of the largest of our colonies. We fought for thirty years, losing most of the time…"

Before Sieon could continue, Jack interrupted him shouting, "Who the hell were you fighting that could withstand a fleet of these ships!?" the panic clear in his voice.

With an irritated look at the General, Sieon said, "First, let me make it clear that the technology we had then was drastically inferior to the technology they had, and the technology we have now is drastically superior to anything that they have thanks to the help we received from the other three Great Races in upgrading our technology. Second, you really need to listen to the full story before you start shouting.

"Now, when we finally captured one of their ships, we sent over a boarding party, but, when we boarded the vessel, we found the ship to be completely empty. The ship was its own crew, and, as such, we finally found out how the enemy was so efficient. They were robotic warships with an unknown creator, an unknown home, an unknown weakness, and an unknown motive for attacking us." The room grew quit as SG-1 processed what they had just heard.

"Finally, after thirty-five years, we found a way to end the war. Though we didn't know it at the time, we were playing a card from the Alterans' book. Rather than fight to the death of our race, we decided to run. We modified one of the FTL devices I mentioned earlier and tried to make it send us into another galaxy. It was supposed to be intergalactic, but something went… weird. I won't say wrong because it did save our race.

"We built this new FTL engine in the galactic core so that the radiation would hide our work. We didn't find out until later that the radiation that hid us was also affecting the technology. When we activated the FTL station, we were flung into a new universe instead of a new galaxy," Sieon said with a slight chuckle. "You'd be surprised at how long it took us to realize that.

"Anyway, we already had a good tech base and we brought a significant portion of our fleet through with us, so our population wasn't an issue. Then, for reasons no one could explain at the time, our people started dying. Krosis was lost in the war so we didn't have his brilliant mind to combat it, but, as it would turn out, Krosis wouldn't have been able to do anything."

"Entropic cascade failure," Sam said sadly. For Vala and Cameron's sakes, she promptly added, "Traveling between alternate realities comes with some problems, the main one being entropic cascade failure. This phenomenon results when two people representing the same person, such as the time there were two of me, exist in the same reality at the same time, and is when the visiting person, the one out of his or her own reality, will start to suffer a physical breakdown at the cellular level due to temporal distortion. A traveler who has no living counterpart will not suffer from this breakdown.

"Put as simply as I can make it, when Doctor Carter came to our reality, she was radically different from me. Because of this, the universe started trying to get rid of her. Our realities were too different for there to be two of us. However, when all those alternate SG-1s showed up in the SGC a few months ago, their realities were so similar to our own that the universe couldn't tell one Samantha Carter apart from the other. The teams that came through with Doctor Frasier and Martouf were different enough to suffer the effects of entropic cascade failure, but the fact that both Martouf and Janus were already dead meant that they, specifically, were immune to the affect. Likewise, when I ended up in the alternate SGC not that long ago, I didn't suffer from entropic cascade failure because their Sam died when her lab exploded while pulling me in."

"I see why you like her," Sieon said with a look of impression on his face.

"She's brilliant enough to make you look like a simpleton," Widget replied with a smile.

"That's stretching it a bit," Sieon countered defensively.

"She understand the basis of what I'm saying when I explain quantum mechanics to her. You don't," Widget countered.

"Okay, back on track!" Sieon loudly proclaimed. "Now the story of my personal life becomes rather dark. Once we figured out what was happening, I decided to save my people. To do so… I hunted this reality's version of those Furlings that were in my fleet to extinction."

The silence that filled the room at such an announcement was palpable, the tension stifling.

"You…" Daniel began before falling silent again.

"Remember when I said that we were at war with the Nox?" Sieon asked. After everyone nodded in reply, he continued. "The war started when the Nox discovered me bombarding a defenseless world from orbit. At this point in their history, the Furlings of your universe were barely FTL capable, but they were FTL capable. In fact, they're the ones who invented the wormhole drive. I stole that from them because my people needed a new form of FTL to get around the galaxy.

"Our war with the Nox was hard for us because we didn't have energy shields. Our kinetic barriers are designed to push a physical round off course. If not for our advanced armor, we would've been beaten easily. As it was, the Furlings who didn't need to die, didn't. The ones who weren't copies of those still alive in my fleet were simply brought into the fold. Because I was the only one actually killing the doubled-up Furlings, my people's Collectives didn't know what was going on, and as far as the Collectives from your reality were concerned, a copy of their race was here to help them advance. Likewise, my people thought that the problem of entropic cascade failure had been solved by our scientists.

"As such, when the Nox followed me back to my people and attacked us, we met them with the full force of our joint peoples. A new Scourge was elected, one of my pupils. The war lasted for two years, both sides taking heavy losses. We had armor that could stop their energy weapons, but their own armor couldn't take much from our kinetic weapons. We had fighters, point-defenses, and years of military tactics learned the hard way. The Nox were pacifists defending the weak.

"When the Asgard arrived on the scene, all they had to go on was the word of our people. They saw us under attack by a superior force, and, after hearing our story, decided to help us. They brought with them the first iteration of plasma shields which greatly improved our combat durability. In return, we gave them our most powerful generators. Because the Asgard proposed the alliance, they were the First Race and we were the Second Race.

"Skip forward a few more years and we've pushed the Nox back to a few remote systems. They've captured some of our tech and have energy shields as well, but their energy production was still limited. Then, one day, their FTL technology jumped forward a thousand years over night. The leap allowed them to hit us fast and hard before disappearing entirely. Two months later we found the Alterans giving them technology and explained the situation to them. The Alterans stopped trading with the Nox and showed up at the next battle in force, and by that I mean they had nearly a hundred ships which was enough to crush both sides if anyone tried anything. They stood between the two sides and demanded peace through understanding. For their efforts, they became the Third Race. Three years later, after the Nox had rebuilt their civilization from the near defeat at the hands of the first two Great Races, they became the Fourth Race.

"Jump forward a few million years and the plague takes the Alterans out of the picture, they leave for Pegasus, the Nox are only on their new homeworld living in peace, the Asgard have left to Ida, and the Furlings have entered a state of seclusion to avoid the plague. After that, the Alterans became the Lanteans, and the Lanteans became the Ancients. At that point, with their ascended knowledge, the Ancients looked into the past, saw my actions, and punished me for them. You may ask yourself how I'm alive after nearly fifty-million years of life. Part of that is stasis, but only because watching the young grow old is boring. As it is, I'm actually incapable of dying from old age. The Ancients made sure that I would live long enough to regret what I did."

"Even then," Daniel said, finally finding his voice again, "you'd have to be millions of years old before they made you immortal. If you were alive for the formation of the Alliance, then you had to be… old as hell by the time they finally did that to you!"

"I suppose leaving out the fact that a Furling has never, in our history, died of old age was a mistake?" Sieon asked with a nervous laugh. "Sorry, I forgot to mention it."

"So you can read minds, manipulate dark matter with your mind, and you live for forever without losing your mind," Jack said with a look on his face that was mix between anger and… something else. "It must be amazing to be a Furling," he added in a dry tone of sarcasm.

"It is indeed," Sieon replied happily. He either didn't catch the tone of Jack's voice, or didn't care. Sam was inclined to think he didn't care.

"You said your enemy had an unknown weakness. Does that mean you still don't know how to beat them?" Jack asked as he was still worried about the invincible foe that brought an entire galactic empire to its knees.

"Worry not, General. Their tech is based off of the usage of eezo and the technology base of an entirely different universe. I assure you that, in regards to your shields, their main weapons will be virtually ineffective. Against your armor, however, they would skewer you in half with an ease the likes of which would send a shiver down even his spine," Widget replied, pointing a finger at Teal'c. "Also, the repairs to the Nex have been completed. There shouldn't be any more problems with the FTL drive. Oh, and I've finally located that damned satellite."

"Satellite?" Sam asked.

"Yes, I ordered the ship to be moved here so I can investigate why one of our satellites went offline, so I'm going to leave you in here while I take care of that. You're free to go through the ship's historical logs…" he said while indicating one of the holographic terminals on the wall, "… so you can find anything I left out of my explanation on your own, and you can also access the visual and audio logs from the attack on our race to get a look at the Destroyer of Worlds," another holo terminal was indicated on the other side of the room. "So pretty much the only thing you can't do is look at the ship's navigational, battle, or technological logs. If you wish to return to your ship, or if you need help, just ask Widget," Sieon said before vanishing in his cloud to parts unknown.

**Dead Space (Furling Stealth Spy Satellite)**

*FSSS 3-4-82 (Surface)*

A wisp of deep purple 'smoke' signaled Sieon's arrival on the satellite's surface. The Furling Stealth Spy Satellite Network was a massive network consisting of millions of stealth satellites. The massive satellites were the size of skyscrapers on Earth, equipped with powerful subspace sensors and communications arrays, and hidden from the Goa'uld's, and all other prying eyes, by the Nox's most advanced cloaking devices.

The network had been built up over the course of three-thousand years and consisted of over two-hundred-million strategically placed satellites. Everything happening in the Milky Way Galaxy for the past untold number of years had been recorded by these satellites and uploaded to Widget's quantum blue box, a hard-drive with a near infinite storage capacity. This satellite happened to be inside of a rather extensive nebula that extended for hundreds of light years.

"Alright, Widget, what's the diagnosis?" Sieon asked as Widget linked to his armor through the built-in computers.

"It seems I get to be the bearer of more bad news. Joyous day!" Widget replied with false enthusiasm. "You need to reconnect the main sub-space coil to the communications grid. That should fix the problem," he added in a dry tone.

"Oh, come on! The main coil is in the heart of the satellite!" Sieon complained. The interior of the satellite was jam-packed with sensors, communications, stealth, and other such systems that had a lot of wires, tubes, heating coils, cooling radiators, and… well, stuff that would make maneuvering hard and uncomfortable. Nevertheless, into its guts the Furling crawled.

After a few minutes of maneuvering, Widget informed him that, "You're going to want to use the fusion torch to reattach the severed cluster of wires to your right. After that, weld the casing back into place, reinitialize the uplink, and you should be good." The AI was capable of seeing everything around the Furling thanks to the sensors suite in his armor serving as an extra pair of 'eyes.'

"Alright," Sieon mumbled as he wiggled into position. "Have you figured out how this happened yet?"

"I won't know for sure until we upload the data its holding, but I do have a theory," the AI replied.

"Alright, let me hear it," Sieon said.

"Judging by the rock fragments nearby, I'm assuming that the satellite was struck by a micro-meteor. After all, the satellites weren't equipped with shields as we never thought that something like this would happen. In retrospect, we should've given them kinetic barriers. Not only are they harder to detect through a cloak, but they would've stopped the rock fragments from piercing the hull. That, or we should've given them thicker armor," Widget explained.

"Thicker armor would've been my choice," Sieon replied. "Our eezo supplies are low as it is, and there isn't enough to equip the entire network with eezo cores, and, given that eezo's the only thing that can produce a kinetic barrier…"

"It would've required more than what we had and was, therefore, an impractical suggestion, yes, but it was still an option," Widget interrupted. "These Humans are weird," he added after a moment.

"How so?" Sieon asked as he began making his way out from deep within the structure that was beginning to hum to life around him.

"All of their technology is advanced because it's based off of Asgard and Goa'uld tech, but the way they did it is… intuitive," the AI replied.

"How so?" Sieon asked again as his foot got caught in a tangle of wires. With a sigh of annoyance, he turned around and started fixing what he broke while getting free.

"Rather than use a system built by the Asgard, they took the design and made it their own. Yes they have an Asgard intergalactic hyperdrive, but theirs is more energy efficient. Not to mention that their shields shouldn't be as strong as they are. They're using a generator that's a hell of a lot smaller than a Goa'uld's, but they produce so much more energy it's just ridiculous. It's like they found a way to make primitive and advanced technology join together in a more efficient way than I would've imagined a species as young as humanity to be capable of."

"Seeing as how they're doing all of this without the full support of their world, is that really so surprising?" Sieon asked as he turned around again and started making his way out of the satellite.

"Considering they have less than the forces of an entire planet only makes it more impressive," Widget corrected the organic. "Seriously though, why are you crawling out of the satellite if you can just teleport out?"

Sieon thought that over for a second before saying, "Because I need to close the maintenance hatch."

"And what's stopping you from teleporting to the external hull of the construct, closing the hatch, and teleporting back to the ship?" Widget countered.

Sieon ground his teeth together before shouting a profanity in his native tongue and following the AI's advice.

*Paciscor of Nex (Combat Information Center)*

"That's interesting," Daniel said.

"What?" Vala and Sam asked.

"The name of this ship is the Paciscor of Nex," Daniel replied.

"What's wrong with that?" Vala asked.

"I'm no expert, but that sounds Ancient to me," Sam said.

"It is," Daniel said. "Why does a Furling ship have an Ancient name?" Daniel asked.

"It was a tribute to the Alterans. A way of thanking, respecting, and honoring them," Widget said, making them all jump. "This ship was built before we came to this universe, but was renamed from the Furling language to the Alteran language after the plague wiped out over half of their population, but before their mass ascension. Even the Asgard named a few ships in the language of the Alterans, the Clausus Cursor being the perfect example." Seeing their reactions, Widget added, "Forgot I was here didn't you? That's fine," before disappearing again.

"Actually it's not that, it's that the fact that they cursed Sieon and you just said you're 'thanking, respecting, and honoring them.' I'm just a little confused as to why you would do that," Daniel said.

"It's simple really. The Alterans are what they were when they were a proud and respectable race. The Ancients are what they are now. You know, a race of pathetic, high-horse riding, good-for-nothing, do-nothings that won't lift a finger to save anyone! They let the Wraith take over the Pegasus Galaxy and kill millions of people every year. They let the Goa'uld take over and do the same in the Milky Way, and now they're letting the Ori invade unchallenged. Oh, and did I mention the Asurans? That was their fault too and how many people died because of them?"

"He has a point," Vala said.

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.

Sam's watch beeped and she looked down before swearing. "Shit! Sir, we've missed three scheduled check-ins!"

"Crap!" Jack swore. "We need to get a message to Earth."

"If you'll follow me," Widget said as the doors to the CIC opened and another holographic image of him was standing outside motioning for them to follow him.

Another ride on the train that ran through the ship took them from the middle of the ship to one of the outer edges. A short walk from the train was a very large door. When that opened, Sam got a good look at the Odyssey in all her glory. The Asgard had modified her heavily. Beams of light had stripped away her armor only to replace it again with something better, weapon emplacements could be seen on the outer hull, there weren't any more holes in her armor, and her engines were fully intact. All in all, she looked like a warship instead of an old, used up punching bag.

Then Sam took in the room they were in. It was a massive hangar built to hold a ship far larger than the Odyssey's tiny frame with a truly massive door directly across from them. As a result, of being sized for a different class of ship, the Odyssey was off-centered and held in place by what looked like magnetic clamps attached to the hull. Considering that none of the materials Sam knew to be in the hull were ferromagnetic, she had to ask.

"What's holding it up?"

"Those things there," Widget replied while pointing to the clamps, "generate a very powerful, specially directed gravity field to hold the ship in place. If you cross the docking necklace, I believe I have it lined up with the airlock properly."

Sam walked forward, crossed the bridge that joined the Odyssey to the dock, entered her access code, then stopped when she noticed her and Jack were alone. "You're not coming?" Sam asked.

"The Odyssey is outside of my domain," Widget replied from his place 'ashore.' "There are no holographic emitters on the ship outside of the Asgard Core and turning that on will only attract the Ori. That, and I doubt that General O'Neill wants an alien computer program entering his ship's computers."

Jack grumbled something illegible in reply before walking into the airlock with Sam behind him. The duo made their way to the Bridge and Sam opened a channel to the SGC. As the connection stabilized and General Landry came on the line, Sam and Jack gave a brief report of their situation and made sure to tell the General that they had found the Furlings.

"An honest to God living Furling?" Landry asked. "This just keeps getting weirder. First the Impolans give us the Devastator, then they turn around and give us designs for a planetary defense shield, and then the Asgard give us weapons to defeat the Ori." Landry shook his head. "When I woke up this morning, I did not predict this outcome. When's your ETA?"

"To be honest, I'm not even sure where we are," Sam replied as she walked over to the navigational computer. 'Pretty,' she thought to herself as she took in the view of the nebula they were in. Then she saw ships that had hunted them for weeks! "Sir!" Sam called out.

"What is it, Carter?" Jack asked as he left Landry looking at the duo from a distance.

Sam pressed a few buttons on another terminal and Landry's view shifted as another camera was used to broadcast their images to him. "It's the Cylons, sir," Sam said while pointing to the Baseships.

"What's a Cylon?" Jack asked.