Col. Carter was on-board the Nemesis, getting the ship ready for a dangerous mission to P9C-372. Modifications were being made to the shield, to prevent an electronic signal from being read by the systems connected to it. Col. Carter believed the electronic lifeforms would attempt to implant a virus on their shields in the hope of it being read by the ship's systems and being able to enter the computer system. Mani was making the modifications to the shield systems. Dr. McKay was modifying a drone to broadcast out a massive radio signal pulse. If the communication between the M.A.L.P. and Stargate had been disruptive before, this would be devastating. A last-ditch ploy to defend the ship if necessary.
Col. Carter had created modules placed around the ship on the computer systems to be able to isolate them instantly. The crew was the minimum, with SG-1 and Dr. McKay relieving certain personal to reduce the crew to its fifty personnel. Hailey and Jackson were working different ways to attempt communication that did not require radio waves.
"So far we have come up with sending a hyperspace signal, using lights, and finally acoustics like an old modem," explained Hailey.
"I suspect they will find a way to communicate with us, once we arrive," explained Daniel.
"We have to be careful no matter how we make communication," replied Carter, "Everything must be secure with no electronic connection to the ship."
"What additional steps do you need us to take? I've read the report," asked Mitchell.
"Col. Mitchell I need you to figure out what we do if things go bad," replied Carter.
"On it Col. Carter," replied Mitchell.
"What can I do?" asked Vala.
"I'm not really for sure. Any tricks on communication?" asked Carter.
"Well could we not monitor their world for signals, and possibly learn something from them?" asked Vala.
"Not a bad idea we could go in cloaked, maybe they wouldn't detect us. We could pick up some viable intel," replied Carter.
Two hours later, McKay came to the bridge, "The drone is ready, it will generate a radio burst large enough to overwhelm ever radio on Earth."
"Let's hope we don't have to use it," replied Carter.
Mani arrived a few minutes later, "The shield generators can no longer read the shields directly, however you won't be able to monitor the shield strength when that mode is enabled."
"Hopefully we won't have to," replied Carter.
"I've been thinking could they be using Ancient technology? or at least Goa'uld technology for communication?" asked Vala.
"They could be wireless, or using a wired technology to communicate," replied Carter.
The next morning SG-1, Dr. McKay, and Col. Carter were seated around the bridge.
"Anyone have any last minute suggestions, changes to make?" asked Carter.
Everyone remained silent.
"Col. Mitchell activate the Wormhole drive, take us to our arranged coordinates. Remember cloak us first," order Carter.
"3...2...1..." replied Mitchell, activating the Wormhole drive. Instantly they were at the edge of a solar system. What they saw overwhelmed them. Where the sun should be, was instead a blackness.
"Scanners?" asked Carter.
"Scanners are showing no planets, not even an asteroid. We are detecting there is a star there, but it is surrounded by a structure," replied McKay.
"A Dyson Sphere?" asked Mitchell.
"I think so," replied McKay.
"Commander O'Neill was right they have some advanced technology," replied Carter, "OK Cam, take us in."
Mitchel set course to bring them within a million miles of the sphere. As they approached they could tell there were light sources scattered about the surface, but not bright enough to discern anything on the surface.
"Radiation levels?" asked Carter.
"None detected," replied McKay.
"Take us on in," replied Carter.
They moved to within thousand miles. They could see that the structures on the surface stretched as far out as 700 miles.
"Have sensors detected the stargate?" asked Carter.
"The sensors have barely scanned one-tenth of one percent of the surface. We could be here for days scanning this," replied McKay.
"Are scanners picking up any signals of any type?" asked Carter.
"I am detecting nothing," replied McKay.
"We don't see any movement. Everything seems to be static. I think it's all hardwired. Imagine trying to get a signal around this sphere any other way," replied Hailey.
"Daniel, any thoughts on how to communicate with them?" asked Carter.
"I'd start with lights, using binary. It understood binary before," replied Jackson.
"Let's deploy a light array," ordered Carter.
An hour later a light array had been attached to an umbilical arm and lowered below Nemesis. It was protected by the shield and they hoped for a response.
"What's the message?" asked Carter. Everyone turning to Daniel.
"Hi," replied Daniel, "How would you say Hi to someone using only mathematics?"
"SETI developed an actually good way to communicate mathematically. Let me pull it up here," replied Hailey, "Here it is. It's a protocol for the first contact. Steps to explain we use a base 10 mathematics. It begins with simple geometry."
"Let me see that," replied McKay, reviewing the document on his screen.
"Let's get settled in," ordered Carter, "This is going to take some time."
The next day, McKay had called everyone back together.
"We can do this, I've devised a series of messages that will help us to establish a communication with them," replied McKay, "It works by uses a decagon and a series of lights. The should have no trouble understanding our math. Then we can move on more complex things."
"Let's get this over with. Lower the cloak, and start the message, McKay," replied Carter.
"Cloak is down," replied Mitchell.
"Starting the message," replied McKay.
The message began as a series of decagons lighting up each side to indicate a number. It would run through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division for a hundred numbers.
"Any signs they see us?" asked Carter.
Hailey on sensors, "No indication, nothing has changed."
"Begin an orbit around the sphere," replied Carter.
"Beginning orbit now," replied Mitchell.
Three hours later no response had been detected. Everyone was growing bored on the bridge. Nearly a full circuit had been completed around the sphere. They knew this could take a while. They had discovered nothing, not even detecting the stargate.
"Let's try sending a hyperspace signal," replied Carter, "Encode in the first one thousand prime numbers."
"Yes, sir!" replied Hailey, "Sending the message now."
At that moment an alarm went off.
"Sensors are detecting an extremely large energy build up outside of our shields!" exclaimed Hailey.
"Red Alert!" ordered Carter, just as everything went dark around the ship.
"What happened?" asked Carter.
"We are no longer next to the sphere. Navigation is trying to determine where we are," replied Hailey.
"Let me look at the sensor logs," replied McKay.
Carter looking over McKay's shoulder, "Is that what I think that is?"
Hailey responded, "It can't be can it?"
"They just folded space around us. They just ignored our shields," replied McKay, "We could be anywhere."
"I think that settles it, they are more advanced than we are," replied Vala.
Lights began coming on around the Nemesis. They could now see they were in a large structure. Far larger than the Nemesis. They couldn't see the end of the structures. When a booming voice was heard.
"Identity," came the voice.
"Show them our gate address on the light panel," ordered Carter. McKay rushed to display the gate address.
"Reason," came the voice.
"How do we tell them we come in peace?" asked Carter.
"Show a picture of two humans greeting each other," replied Daniel.
"Try it," replied Carter.
"We are now getting a message over hyperspace," replied Hailey.
"What's it say?" asked Daniel.
"Not Altera," replied Hailey.
"They knew the Ancients?" asked Carter.
"Appears they did," replied Daniel, "We have to be careful in what we say."
Just then an image appeared on the bridge, more of a white silhouette of a human.
"Welcome to Primus," replied the figure.
"You speak our language?" asked Daniel.
"I have been monitoring your language since you arrived," replied the figure, "If you attempt to use the weapon you have brought along I will send your ship into a star."
"We come in peace!" replied Daniel.
"Then why do you have a weapon that you know will cause us severe damage?" asked the figure.
"Our last encounter was a misunderstanding. We never meant to hurt you. The weapon we brought was only for self-defense if we could not get away. We do not want to hurt your people," replied Daniel.
"I understand, but you do not. There are no people, there is I Primus," replied Primus.
"Primus is latin, meaning first. Are you the first of your kind? Are there more like you?" asked Daniel.
"Primus is I, I am Primus, I am all you have seen here," replied Primus.
"Wait you are a single entity? It's just one entity?" asked Carter.
"Yes," replied Primus, "You are not the Altera. Who are you? How do you have their technology?"
"We inherited, as their descendants," replied Daniel.
"You are from Avalon?" asked Primus.
"Yes, that was the Ancient name for where we come from," replied Daniel, "May I ask where you came from?"
"The Altera built Primus. I was their first sentient computer. I was left here when the star here exploded. It created a gravity well. I adapted and built all you see," replied Primus.
"Wait you built a Dyson sphere around a black hole?" asked McKay.
"A gravity well," replied Primus.
"That is incredible, the power you must be collecting must be incredible. How is this structure even able to sustain the gravity at this range?" asked McKay, "How did you get the materials to even build this?"
"Fifty trillion kilojoules of power from the gravity well. I inverted the gravity waves back to the gravity well. I transformed all of the raw material in this system to trinium. Which I used to construct the structures," replied Primus.
"You can control gravity?" asked Hailey.
"Gravity is easy to control, it just requires the waves to be focused and redirected," replied Primus.
"I would love to hear how you do that," replied McKay.
"It will take approximately twenty-five million two hundred fifty-seven thousand four hundred two years to explain, shall I begin now?" asked Primus.
"Wait why will it take that long to explain?" asked McKay
"It took me fifty-seven million nine hundred twenty-two thousand eight hundred fifty-six years to discover it. This would, of course, be a condensed training," replied Primus.
"How old are you?" asked Daniel.
"I am basing time on the cycles of Altera around your star, I am two hundred million five years," replied Primus.
"Is there no one else here in that time?" asked Daniel.
"Amelius created Primus to assist him. He and the other Altera had to leave when the star began to expand and eventually collapse. He had no choice to leave me behind," replied Primus.
"Amelius is who created the Ark of Truth, he was the father of the Stargate. He was one of the Ancients that left Celestes," replied Daniel.
"We have received a few visitors through the stargate, but they do not survive," replied Primus.
"About that, we are sorry for the damage we caused with the radio signals from our M.A.L.P.," replied Daniel.
"You did not send any further signals to damage Primus," replied Primus.
"The entity that you sent back to the stargate to stop us, was that a child of yours?" asked Daniel.
"Primus can have no children. The entity you speak was a defensive algorithm to stop you," replied Primus.
"An algorithm?" asked Carter, "it seemed to be extremely intelligent, even sentient."
"It was designed to mimic Primus, however, it would lack the data storage I possess," replied Primus.
Over the next few days, Daniel led the discussion, getting to know and understand Primus. Haley, Carter, and McKay had many questions, mostly unanswered questions as Primus always gave them far to many years for him to explain to them. In the end, they learned Primus was built by Amelius to assist him in his research. Primus was able to make use of devices left behind to begin to convert his systems into a mobile platform on an abandoned ship of the ancients. He avoided the collapse of the star using this platform and began converting the planetary bodies in the solar system to trinum.
Mitchell took to exercising as it was the only thing that kept Vala away. Vala was extremely bored, quickly learning that Primus had no treasure. Mitchel was hoping he could at least complete his required yearly physical training and have Carter sign off on it for him.
On day three, McKay learned that Primus used the intense gravity of the black hole to fold space, not something they could duplicate. They learned the Dyson sphere was primarily storage banks for data. Primus had spent his millions of years doing nothing but thinking, and every thought was stored. Primus had been designed to be able to generate simulations, adjusting algorithms to achieve different results. Primus had developed additional processors for himself, adding more than a trillion times his original processing capability.
"My original designs I was twice the size of this ship. I was designed as a ship to orbit the star here," replied Primus, "Unlike the ships I designed."
"What ships did you design?" asked McKay.
"Destiny and the Seeder ship fleet," replied Primus.
"You designed Destiny?" asked Daniel.
"Yes," replied Primus.
"Do you know the mission of Destiny?" asked Daniel.
"To discover the source of the pattern in the cosmic background radiation," replied Primus, "To find who or what created it."
"Did you ever figure out the cause?" asked Carter.
"That was not my assignment," replied Primus, "I designed Destiny to solve that issue."
"I've been wondering if the Old ones were aware of this pattern and know it's source. That it could be a guarded secret," replied Daniel.
"Old Ones?" asked Primus.
"Beings on another plane, where the Altera ascended to. There were beings far older than them, some that were native to that plane of existence. We refer to them as the old ones," explained Daniel.
Primus sat quietly for a moment, "Yes the seventeenth dimension. Those being there are far younger than the source of the pattern. My observations of the native species of that plane determined they were between five and ten billion years old. The source of the pattern would be twenty-two billion years old."
"How can that be, the universe is only thirteen point seven billion years old?" asked McKay.
"No my observations of the stars, distant galaxies and calculating the celestial mechanics, this cycle of the universe is twenty-two billion years old," replied Primus, "I was looking forward to explaining that to Amelius."
"Wait you can observe the ascended beings on their own plane?" asked Carter.
"Yes it is a simple matter to shift to the seventeenth dimension and observe them," replied Primus.
"Can you communicate with them?" asked Daniel.
"No, in my observations of them, they do not seem to detect my presence," replied Primus.
"This could be a huge help to us if there was a way for us to observe their dimension. Is this something you would consider sharing?" asked Carter.
"It would take approximately thirty-seven of your days to explain to you this technology," replied Primus.
"Wait you said this cycle of the universe. What did you mean?" asked Haley.
"The universe goes through expansion and compression. Currently, the universe is expanding, when the energy driving that expansion is exhausted the universe will begin to compress. Once all matter in the universe compress to a single entity it will trigger another expansion," replied Primus.
"Our observations show that the expansion isn't slowing down but speeding up. The shift in the red light spectrum shows this," replied Haley.
Primus considered her statement, "The shift you are detecting in the red light spectrum isn't due to acceleration, but due to a change in the wavelength of red light. The red light your detecting from far away galaxies is from billions of years ago when the wavelength was much larger. While here you see the current length of the red light. When compression begins the blue light spectrum will begin to lengthen," explained Primus.
"Did he just solve one of our biggest scientific questions?" asked Carter.
"Yes he did," replied McKay.
Mitchell and Vala were standing in the hallway listening to this conversation.
"I think we are going to be here for a really long time," spoke Vala.
"It sure is looking like it. Look at them, they are like vultures circling their prey," replied Mitchell.
"Not sure what a vulture is, but they are circling him," replied Vala.
"I can't do this for a month," replied Mitchell.
"I can't do this another day," replied Vala.
"I have an idea, let me talk to Col. Carter," replied Mitchell.
Later that day.
Mitchell called to Carter, "Sam, I have an idea,"
"Sure Cam what is it?" asked Carter.
"Primus seems to have lots of scientific knowledge and willing to share. What if we were to set up a station here, and place the stargate in it. We would station some people here. Our scientists could come and go and work with Primus, without having to have a ship here," suggested Mitchell.
"That is an excellent idea," replied Carter, "The Asgard could probably have us a base here tomorrow. I'll run it by Commander Caldwell."
"Anything to help," replied Mitchell.
"You mean anything to keep from sitting around listening to scientific babble?" asked Carter
"You said that I didn't," replied Mitchell. Carter went on her way to her quarters to contact Caldwell.
"Nice job," replied Vala.
"Thanks, seems like a great idea, to open this resource up to more scientists," replied Mitchell.
Few ideas were fast-tracked as fast as this one was, once it was suggested to Caldwell. O'Neill sent a request out to Thor immediately. Thor would be delivering the station the next day. Time dilation and nanites were amazing for construction. The station would have the shield and defensive capabilities of a city ship, but overall a smaller structure. In addition, the station would be built with radio frequency blocking material, to prevent harm to Primus.
Primus accepted the chance to have the station and begin regularly discussion with scientists.
"The Ascended Dimension viewing technology, more information on this pattern in the background radiation, and lots more data on the makeup of the universe," replied Carter.
Thor responded, "I believe a number of Asgard scientists will want to discuss details with him on various subjects as well."
"I wonder if Amelius ever imagined his technology being used over two hundred million years later?" asked Daniel.
"It really is a testament to his genius," replied McKay.
"Prime Station is now online. Personal from Altera are arriving," replied Thor.
"I'll be staying here at the station, to learn this dimension viewing technology," replied McKay, "At least now I can home to Jennifer at night."