Okay, I'm doing quite a timeskip here, a couple months just to make sure things get going but in a believable timeframe. These sorts of things like the Colonials and Earth are conducting do not happen quickly. Diplomacy is a painstakingly-slow process and as is the wider plot of the story if done in real time so I'm conducting a jump. So, here we are, hopefully we'll start seeing things begin happening. Action is set to occur, I swear, I have a plan and things are gonna get spicy.

Chapter 20

Location: Aquaria, Iris Island Ring Facility

Date: May 5, 2022

Time: 0830

It was a daily occurrence these briefings for the Colonial gate program. Here, in the Iris Island Ring Facility, its new top secret name, three civilian department heads, including Dr. Gaius Baltar, and two Colonial Intelligence Commanders were sitting at a large hardwood table with a dark stain with the Colonial banners set up on poles on the main wall behind them with the new unique crest of the program on the wall above them across from the head of the table. It was a silver metallic imitation of the Stargate with the gold crest of the Twelve Colonies within it.

They'd made progress in the couple months of operation which had seen the Ring of the Lords arrive, be installed in a high-tech and high-security gateroom with interlocking titanium-plated blast doors with two heavy machine guns and two medium machine guns on pintle mounts with concrete slabs bolted into the floor to act as cover. The ceiling had a retracting telescoping mount for launching long-range and short-range drones with a rocket booster for aerial reconnaissance or for launching missiles. The floor below dropped using a pivoting ramp door leading into a large garage which was meant to house various land vehicles which could be used by exploration teams. Above and behind the he control room linked to a brand-new observation deck with state-of-the-art computer terminals with links for drones and if needed missiles or rockets. The entire area was equipped with an isolated CBRN suite of the highest-capability, with airlocks keeping the air pressure within the sector around the Stargate at a lower pressure while vehicles were brought in via the same corridor that the hefty nuclear weapons which had once been housed here had come in through.

Gray digital uniformed troops in full kit were always guarding the Ring, no less than ten men at a time were there in the room with it should the worst happen and something hostile attempt to come through, although lately the lab coats of scientists and the gray coveralls of the technicians vastly outnumbered these troops. The Colonials were convinced of the importance of their ability to counterattack and retake the Ring of the Lords should a hostile force attempt a seizure of the secure wing of the facility rather than an infiltration from an outside force, and had planned their security protocols accordingly. Although they had retained all the uniquely-intricate outside security that had come with the facility, with checkpoints, blastdoors, and numerous overlapping security cameras and chokepoints keeping intruders well away. Dozens of other heavy blast doors were wired into the security network and were configured for pre-planned localized or facility-wide lockdowns.

The Colonial government was spending an increasing amount of cash on this program, and results were expected, especially with what the news was filling with. There were rumors of the military drawing up war plans and contingencies for conflict with Earth, as if it were a new thing. The truth was that the Colonial brass drew up conflict plans for anything and everything that they could envision. But still, it only helped this fledgling and incredibly-important Colonial military program.

"How goes the progress Dr. Baltar?" Rear Admiral Queen asked as he began the daily briefing for the programming department heads.

"Quite well I think. I believe that we have a preliminary understanding of the sort of interface mechanism and frequency which the ring operates on, and will be ready for a preliminary test to perform diagnostics today. Once that happens, the first attempt at dialing the ring will commence."

"Do you have everything you need?" the Admiral responded, leaning back casually, relaxed and pleased with the reports thus far.

"So far yes," Baltar replied dutifully.

Indeed this was true, Colonial industry's finest equipment which far outstripped what the SGC had used for decades in terms of power and efficiency. Power lines, rollers for the Stargate, computers, towers, and other miscellaneous items were well and truly the most advanced of their kind. This, coupled many times of the number of minds and hands on deck plus an institutional understanding of a similar type of science and the unusual smarts from Baltar and his uniquely-productive lover got things working in a period that took a few months. Whereas for Earth, many years ago, this same project took years and years, learning this from scratch and building things that had no equivalent. It was an advantage that the Colonials did not yet realize that they possessed.

"Do we have any formative addresses for initial exploration?" the admiral inquired, now looking to a different individual.

"Yes admiral, we have what could be the address to Kobol according to archaeological evidence from Gemenon. Also on the list are three other addresses that were part of an incomplete inscription found with the Ring," the old man, a renowned archaeologist and linguist in charge of deciphering the symbols on the Stargate and all related ancient material.

"Any information on these addresses?"

"No sir, I'm afraid all information we have found has been entirely fragmentary due to the condition of the site. All we had was these addresses, excavations at what we believe could be an ancient library are ongoing so we may find additional information in the next few months."

"Very well, Commander Davina, how goes recruitment? Will the military have teams ready for deployment?"

"Yes sir, although we did lose one recruit in Boskirk, Lieutenant Durren, he was among the wounded in the rescue mission. However, all other personnel who have been contacted have given their replies and transfer orders have gone out. We're throwing our weight to get the various parent units expediting these transfers as soon as possible."

"Excellent," the admiral responded, "And we have our team organization and makeup finalized?"

"Yes sir, six-man military teams with a four-person scientific exploration team with them. We'll of course need to conduct self-defense courses, first aid, and survival courses for all civilian personnel in these exploration teams. These courses are being pulled from some of the emergency training initiatives we had during the Cylon War. It should suffice for the civilians at least."

"And how goes our civilian recruitment?" Admiral Queen asked, turning to another quite old gentleman, "Any updates?"

"We have background checks back for…" the older man stated, looking to his notes, "Eight of our candidates, seven have passed, one failed. Still waiting on the rest."

By the rest, the civilian personnel head of course meant more than a hundred potential candidates. They were an even mix of medical professionals and researchers, advanced science researchers and theorists, government diplomats with linguistics expertise, and biologists with a mix of expertise in different fields including bacterial and viral agents and the greater flora and fauna subjects. For all of these, the government already had civilian team leaders picked. All of them carefully-selected agents of the Colonial Security and Intelligence Agency who were also very capable analysts, gunfighters, and were trained in making the hard decisions. The key factor when filtering these agents had been their willingness to do the nasty but necessary things in order to survive or accomplish the mission or objective.

The program had a very simple outlook on how it chose its people. Their methodology was a product of hard-earned and brutal lessons from what many termed high value suicide missions. To the Colonials, there were two things that had been learned above all: People with nothing to lose were indeed and excellent choice when the objective was to simply destroy something and where coming back was optional, but people with everything to lose were capable of doing so much more in the pursuit of getting to homes and families that they loved. This ability to overcome long odds through survival extinct and drive was what opened up the prospects for the military during the war. They could embark on more missions and return with vital intel or other objectives. Therefore, the Colonial military chose personnel for their own Stargate program were for the most part going to have families, a decent home life, and something to come back to. After all, it didn't matter if the Colonial teams could leave if they didn't come back.

"So, do you have any ETA at all?" Queen demanded with a sigh of resignation at the slow pace of the civilian side of things.

"We're being told no for the whole candidate pool, since the CSIA is prioritizing its counter terror missions above us in terms of its resources. But we're making progress, we'll have our exploration teams all staffed at month's end at the latest."

"And training?"

"Three months for our civilians to pass their weapons qualifications and competence tests," Commander Davina responded curtly.

"Will we be ready by then Dr. Baltar?" Admiral Queen stated with an even reply.

"Yes, definitely," Gaius replied.

"Make sure that we are. I don't need to tell you all just how important it is that this operation gets off the ground. The government's become uneasy about how genuine Earth's overtures are despite the media's so-called analysis. The military technological capability that they have displayed means that there is precious little that the Fleet and the Army can do to stop them if they choose to utilize military force against us for whatever reason. Make no mistake, Earth's not going to give us those types of technologies, the simple fact that they have yet to reveal the spatial coordinates of their own home system shows they don't trust us. So, we can't trust them, which means it is the job of this command to get out there, and get them ourselves."

This was a speech he'd had to say a couple other times before, especially in one-on-one talks, and in Admiral Queen's position he found himself saying it in these meetings. It was robotic, uncomfortable, but it had to be done. Nothing short of the blunt unfiltered truth was going to be spoken in his command. If it hurt feelings, went counter to some people's religious upbringing, or bruised egos, he didn't care. The man had his orders, and he was going to put forth his ultimate effort towards it. Now, he had additional information, more sensitive and compartmentalized than any other bit of intel. It was time for the rest of them to know.

"With that, we can move on to something else, seeing as we've confirmed the security of our program I've been cleared to bring up additional information that has thus far been known to only a handful of people in the entire government. Debriefings from Lieutenant Kelsey Adama did not just contain information on Earth. She claimed in her debriefing that there were other populated worlds and systems out there. There are isolated unique alien worlds in a variety of stages of development. But there are many, perhaps tens of thousands, of human worlds. Some are moderately advanced, but the majority have reached feudal states, no gunpowder, no electricity, no flight, but are almost entirely interlinked with complex trade diplomatic networks.

"But there are two major alien entities we are concerned about. The least powerful, but the more influential, is known as the Tok'ra. They are a race of parasitic organisms that dwell within humans in a symbiotic relationship. They are quote; 'Unparalleled spies and are the remnants of a resistance movement which waged a war against another segment of their own biological race for thousands of years and with Earth's assistance finally won and have since been a key trade power and technical advisers for many human worlds with whom they enjoy close relations'. Now, this obviously an Earth ally, but there is a second, also ostensibly an Earth ally, but one which Lieutenant Adama noted in her debrief that the Earth personnel looked at with a degree of suspicion and trepidation. the so-called Jaffa Nation, a near-human species, Lieutenant Adama's rather vague on exactly what makes a Jaffa a Jaffa, but we'll find that out in due time. But we do know that these people are advanced, more advanced than us in terms of possessing space-capable ships that travel between different systems, the extent of their capability is unknown, the lieutenant was not allowed access to any particulars."

"Admiral…we're sure of this? Lieutenant Adama's…sir, she's no intelligence officer, how do we know that the information that she has provided isn't planted nonsense? How would a Viper jock know anything she was hearing or seeing was the real deal?" Commander Davina replied, fighting the urge to scoff at this report.

"Because we've seen Earth ships do things we didn't think possible. And we have a frakking stone ring hooked up to the most powerful generator on the planet that can create frakking wormholes, Commander, don't you think it's time to scrap our ideas of plausibility?" Admiral Queen raised his voice back, knowing that the looks he was getting from other members of the departments assembled here had similar if not even more vehemently-held beliefs that disagreed with this report.

He was going to snap them clean out of that state of mind. And the way in which he snapped back at his military number two, who was quite highly-respected and frankly feared was a clear shot across the bow for the whole meeting. No one was going to doubt anything in this place.

Stargate Command

"So, the office hasn't changed much has it?" Cam asked as he walked into the old closet with Carter after having returned from the Delta Site.

"I'm thinking of putting in carpet, maybe a couch," Carter grinned back as the two sat down, and saw a report was waiting for her. It bore the Navy's own heading, specifically SOCOM, "Oh, looks like the report from the SEAL's arrived."

Carter was a quick reader, and soon she was finished. And Cam was handed the paperwork himself and began reading as well. The Navy had taken its time, almost two months to get this report compiled and delivered.

"Looks like the trigger for the terrorists was our breach, when their lookout on the roof heard the flash bang go off a warning went out and their people on the ground got off shots. The Colonial special forces were known to be in position by our people when they made the decision to go in, but the breach was reactionary."

"Oh, yeah, a weapon was leveled at her and a verbal threat was made and the woman holding the knife advanced on her. The SEAL's had no real choice, not with that plus Colonial special forces moving in from below them threatening to blow the mission and get her killed if they were discovered. They chose the only option where they knew she was going to live," Mitchell said as he read over the summary at the beginning before moving down to the more nitty gritty details.

"And we couldn't guarantee that we wouldn't have a green-on-blue situation if their other team went to the ground floor to try to rescue their people. The fact is that no one did anything really wrong," Carter sighed.

"Yeah, fog of war," Mitchell nodded in agreement, "Some things just can't be accounted for, no matter how good you are stuff will go wrong."

"Thank God the Colonials were in the positions when they were, things could have been a lot worse for those civilians. It still won't be good enough for SOCOM, it says they're launching a more in-depth investigation to see if anyone on their team acted negligently."

"Yeah, and we still can't tell the Colonials anything about how we got in and out and got rid of that bomb in the middle of the city and saved who-knows-how-many people?"

"The trouble is that they might not believe us, or we'll trigger a tech race that they might be better equipped to handle than we initially gave them credit for. After all, they've gotten their own gate program underway now," Sam informed Mitchell.

"No kidding? Already?"

"Yeah, we're paying special attention to their facility with as many scans as we can, looks like they've gotten those big nukes on their facility's disassembly line, which precludes the need for a covert infiltration now, thank God. But we now have another headache, it's only a matter of time before the Colonials are able to make the Stargate work. They are decades ahead of where we were when we started our program, and we didn't have the access of the institutional expertise in faster than light travel that they have. I've estimated their first successful wormhole connection to take place within the next couple months at the earliest."

"Which means we have another major military power sending teams out into the galaxy."

"Fortunately, the galaxy itself is reasonably calm at the moment, even with the drama in the Jaffa election. Teal'c and his people are preparing a military operation to go after who they believe responsible for the attack on Chulak."

"What's the word on that by the way?" Cam perked up, always eager to hear about how Teal'c was doing.

"We got some intel on the planet from the Tok'ra seeing as we've never been there," Carter leaned forward, "P5S-464, it's a colony planet, directly under the control of a world we have visited, the people of P7Y-739. They're a late industrial age power, quite heavily-populated, and very intertwined in trade right now. We know that they've been getting into the 1940's in terms of their level of technology, and are a pretty fascinating planet, according to the Tok'ra they have 464 as their first offworld colony which has become something akin to a trade hub for people from across their trade network to come and do business and bring new trading partners in and where they show off their stuff like cars, planes, zeppelins, electricity, and whatnot. Overall it's a pretty slick operation, a little on the rough side compared to us, but leagues above where most of the rest of the galaxy's at."

"Huh, shame we never got to go there, I always had a soft spot for old Cadillacs," Mitchell noted, "So, what're we doing about it?"

"I've requested a meeting with Teal'c, gonna try and talk him out of military action."

"You know, when we've tried that with Teal'c in the past it usually turns out he had the right idea," Mitchell reminded Carter, "You think that this is different?"

"Hard to know for sure until I speak to him. I hope if I can go to Dakara I'll get a feel for what the Jaffa are planning on doing exactly," she responded, knowing that her old friend was often quite tough to dissuade, especially when the target of his ire had the blood of Jaffa on their hands, or at least perceived that.

"I think we need to get someone on the ground at P5S-464. If can get an audience on Dakara then we might be able to get an idea if Teal'c's actually onto something or if he's being set up," Cam noted.

"Well it's obvious someone's trying to play him, but who and why remains to be seen."

Washington D.C.

"Thank you for coming General," Senator Jackson sighed as he sat down in his office, the first time he had hosted General O'Neill within his office on the Hill.

"Any time, I figured when you asked me to meet you here instead of the IOA's building in Maryland I was going to be in for a surprise," O'Neill leaned back in his seat as he sat comfortably, not betraying the unease he always felt when dealing with this man in an official capacity, "How's Brenda?"

"Not resting, that's for sure," the Senator smirked, nodding as he looked down at his clasped hands, "She's already in the gym, trying to get into shape for the fitness tests for the SG Team selection process. Although the girl competes in every marathon she's around for I'm not sure how much better shape she can get into. I think it's her way of coping with the trauma of the experience."

"I've known more than a few guys who were like that. A workout is their safe place. But I don't think we're here to talk about how your daughter is recovering, are we?"

"Indeed not," the Senator replied, "We've resumed preparations for our cultural exhibit on Caprica now that security in the compound has been re-examined and reinforced. But we remain tied to the consequences of the terror attack on Virgon. The Colonial government has not outwardly blamed us, but they are making noises that indicate that they do lay blame at our feet. I feel it is in our interests to try to mend that trust, to that end I wanted to float some ideas past you before I take them to the IOA board handling the Colonial situation, as well as ask for any ideas you might have. You have more experience than anyone, and I want to make use of it. After all, you are laying the groundwork for your retirement right?"

"Not getting any younger, fire away," O'Neill gestured to him.

"Right…I think we should provide technical specifications for an iris for the Colonial Stargate, as well as a list of addresses to planets with which we enjoy a friendly relationship who would welcome a diplomatic overture from the Colonials," he replied, "As well as a list of worlds which are probably dangerous to dial, such as known blackholes and whatnot."

"The iris…yeah, that's a purely defensive and security measure, so I don't see why not. The addresses…we'll probably need to screen them to be safe. And yeah black hole gates are a definite good idea, I'd rather not imagine the issues that could be caused from that experience plus some of the more notable worlds on the black list."

"So you agree? In principle?"

"Yeah, I don't see why not. But I should remind you that we don't offer any addresses with people who've got advanced technology. Not that I don't trust you, I don't trust the Colonials," the general reminded him.

"I'm more in line with that sentiment than you may think General. Being on Caprica's offered some unique prospective, and I think I'd best make that case as sternly as possible that the Colonials will probably not be our friends long-term."

"You think so?" O'Neill said, his tone of voice changing to one of seriousness and focus.

"I do. The Colonials bare the hallmarks of a frustrated power whose ambition has been long-constrained and their itching to re-expand their influence and hold. According to Dr. Jackson they once controlled a few dozen small colony worlds in their handful of neighboring star systems within their cluster. They want them back, and they want more."

"You think we're dealing with conquest and tyranny types, iron grip Soviet satellite ambitions, or something else?"

"I think we're dealing with something else, it is difficult to put into simple terms General, but if I were to put it frankly, I feel as though we'll be dealing with a version of our own State Department at the height of the Cold War, paranoid and aggressive."

"Will we have to make contingencies for armed conflict?" O'Neill asked.

"An actual war? I doubt it, but I'd be remiss in hand-waving the possibility of the Colonials beginning to support proxies of their own who might take aggressive actions in pursuit of their own goals with Colonial support."

"Well, we'd better be sure we're on the lookout then, shouldn't we?"

P5Y-464

Within the urban center of what to Earth's Stargate Command was known as P5Y-464 a large series of apartment blocks was in use by a mixture of unique people from across the Stargate system that had been reached by the people of P7Y-739. Among them was a uniquely-violent sect of humans whose intentions were tainted by the experiences of thousands of years and blood feud which had once been very one-sided but with the proliferation of weapons from Earth and the collapse of the Gou'ald Empire they'd taken to the offensive. It was this group who'd successfully planted a bomb on Dakara and killed dozens of Jaffa but had been unable to kill Teal'c himself due to poor planning and worse execution. This group utilized a mixture of ballistic weaponry, staff weapons, and Zat'nik'tels.

These weapons were never to be seen on the streets below, which were usually crowded with market stands, cars bearing unique similarity to those of the 1940's on Earth, large neon signs over the different local bars, casinos, hotels, apartments, restaurants and other establishments. Goods and products from a hundred planets could be found here, and the number of faces to be seen here made it an excellent place to hide. And with the large military presence of heavily-armed soldiers and police any prospective hunters were in for a rude shock. More than a few shady individuals found that P5Y-464 was the ideal hiding place, especially when rumors abounded of how this place had viciously retaliated against anyone who'd tried to enforce anything resembling foreign authority upon it.

However, the government here and this group of anti-Jaffa humans were not connected. They didn't share any goals whatsoever, but were more than willing to tolerate each other so long as the status quo was not unbalanced. But the status quo was exactly what was being targeted lately.

In pursuit of that was one of the group's messengers, fresh from a secretive rendezvous in the wider galaxy. Riding the unique elevator mechanism and paying a few gold coins to maintain silence of uniformed elevator operator the man stepped out into the hallway and made his way inside, checking over his shoulder as he did so. Covered in a cloak from head to toe the man was here with a message and a gate address. The address he possessed was provided from the group's supporting patron, Koramon, and the address was one which could change things for this group forever. This address would take them to Aquaria, the headquarters of the Colonial Stargate Program.