Chapter 136: Tense Negotiations Part 4

Gate Room, Euronda, December 18th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"You want us to betray our soldiers? Those who fought the hardest for us? Stab our own in the back after all they suffered for our sake?"

Samantha Carter was glad she wasn't standing too close to Alar - the man was literally spitting mad.

"The Eurondan Alliance wants to try the ones responsible for the genocide of their people," Adora told him. "They insisted on that."

They also insisted on complete disarmament of the Eurondan Nation, but Alar either had missed that or didn't care as much about his nation as he cared about his own fate - his name was almost at the top of the war criminal list that Commander Lan had handed over - obviously prepared in advance. Sam wasn't quite sure how much of his insistence had been simply posturing to improve his position in the negotiation, but the man was a shrewd negotiator, and they had already said that this was just their condition to start negotiations, not the sum of their demands.

Of course, Sam perfectly understood and supported his demand for justice. Letting Nazis go free just to facilitate a peace treaty… Well, the United States had done worse in the past, but that didn't make it right.

Alar shook his head. "And you agreed to that? You could easily stop them! Crush their forces as you crushed ours!"

"Well, you see - they didn't supply poison to our enemies and then tried to kill all of us." The General shrugged. "Call me petty, but I think that's a kinda important difference."

Sam did neither smile nor roll her eyes at his comment. But she did smile at Alar's gasp - the former and possibly present leader of the Eurondan Nation seemed shocked.

Unfortunately, he quickly rallied. "But you said you would protect us! We're helpless in the face of your enemies - most of our people are held in stasis!"

Adora nodded. "And we will protect your people. We won't let them kill you."

Alar looked relieved, but before he could say anything, the General added: "That doesn't mean we won't let you get punished for your crimes. The death sentence might be off the table, but prison isn't."

Alar gasped again. "But… it was war! We only defended ourselves against a threat to the very heart of our nation!"

"By starting a war." Mermista rolled her eyes. "That's a very active defence."

"We had no choice but to launch an attack. If we had waited any longer, we would not have had any chance at victory!"

"Well, you can tell that to the judge," the General said.

"We won't accept such a treaty!" Alar shook his head almost violently. "We'd rather fight to our last soldier!"

Glimmer snorted at that. "I doubt that. Your former subordinates were quick to abandon you in order to kill us. I'm sure the first ranking officer not on the list of war criminals will quickly hand you over rather than die for you."

Alar seemed to have no answer to that.

"How did they know our leaders, anyway?" Tralan spoke up. He hadn't commented until now. "I didn't think they had captured any of us. How would they know our names?"

"They didn't. They asked us," the General told him.

"What?"

Adora cleared her throat. "They had the names of your leaders at the start of the war. And they also asked for their successors."

"And we told them," Glimmer added. "We're not going to lie for you, and it would have come out anyway - as soon as your next subordinate wants to replace you."

"But…" Alar blinked and then looked around in the gate room.

Sam didn't look away when he met her eyes. By any reasonable standards, the man was a genocidal war criminal. And his people had tried to kill her friends and herself.

"We'll ensure you will get a fair trial and that you won't get executed if you're found guilty." Adora smiled encouragingly at him.

"But…"

Daniel was smiling as well. "You were ready to die for your people, right? To give your life to save them? Losing your freedom instead of your life to save them should be a better outcome."

"Yes!" Entrapta nodded several times. "Because you'll be alive. And prisons aren't that bad - I spent some time in a cell as well. Just don't break out; they don't like that."

Alar stared at her in apparent bafflement.

"And if you ask nicely, we'll build you a pretty prison with all the best cells." The General bared his teeth at Aral. "It'll probably be more comfortable than spending your life in this bunker. At least as a common soldier."

He had been sarcastic, but Entrapta nodded eagerly. "Oh, yes! We can do that! We have to rebuild much of your planet's infrastructure anyway, so adding a nice prison won't be much more work! Oh! Do you want to stay on the surface? We could build a prison in space!"

"If you're found guilty. You weren't in charge when the war started, were you?" Glimmer asked.

"No…" Alar slowly shook his head. "No, I wasn't. That was my father."

The man looked entirely too relieved for Sam's taste.

Gate Room, Euronda, December 19th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"All of the Eurondans responsible for the attack that wrecked the planet's biosphere are dead already?"

Catra snorted - even Adora sounded incredulous.

Alar, though, nodded. Almost eagerly. At least, he managed not to appear smug. "Yes. My father ordered the attack as a preemptive strike. He died ten years into the war - the stress of leading our people through such an ordeal was too much for him. I asked him to step down and go into stasis years before that, but he wouldn't listen. He said that would be like abandoning his duty to our people."

Oh, yes! Catra could totally see Alar asking his dear old father to step down and let him take over. For his own good, of course. She scoffed. The man was a schemer, like many of his subordinates - who had quickly accepted his leadership once again after hearing that their enemies wanted to try their leaders for their crimes.

Alar glanced at her for a moment, then turned back to look at Adora.

"He wouldn't have acted alone. He had others to plan and launch the attack," Adora said.

"Subordinates following his orders," Alar retorted. "Although most of them are dead by now as well, so whether or not they would have been able to stop him is moot."

"'Most of them'?" Adora frowned.

"One is in stasis, though his mental health had deteriorated to the point of being unable to fulfil his duty - he was in charge of our aero-fighters and personally led many strikes. Too many." Alar sighed far too theatrically. "I fear he is not fit to stand trial."

"I think that's what the court will have to judge," Catra commented, earning another glance.

"Yes," Adora agreed. "Whether or not he can stand trial will be up to the Eurondan Court of Justice."

An important-sounding name. It was too bad they hadn't been able to agree on anything else regarding the court.

Alar frowned some more. "Taking him out of stasis will endanger his life."

"We can heal him," Adora said.

"And we can't let him remain in stasis forever anyway," Catra added.

"You can heal him?" Alar didn't sound as happy as Catra had expected. Even counting the fact that he was charged with attempted genocide as well.

"I think so," Adora said. "It won't hurt to try, in any case."

"Healing him only so the Breeders can execute him seems cruel and unusual," Alar pointed out - probably misquoting the law books they had given the Eurondans.

"He won't be executed," Adora said. "We won't budge on that. The death penalty is barbaric."

"I was under the impression that the death penalty was still in use on Earth." Alar looked confused.

Catra snorted. Had the Eurondan expected to understand Earth after an evening reading a few law books? She'd spent months on Earth, immersed in its news and media, and still didn't really understand most of the planet. Then again, Earth had billions of people - magnitudes more than any other planet they knew - and hundreds of countries and distinct regions.

"Some of our allies still have the death penalty, yes." Adora frowned deeply. "But not the military code of justice for the alliance."

"We're supposed to kill the Goa'uld, not each other," Catra added.

"We're supposed to defeat them," Adora corrected her.

Catra nodded, even though she was sure that the Jaffa - the rebels amongst them - wouldn't want to spare any of the snakes. And given that they still hadn't found a way to provide the Goa'uld with artificial hosts that didn't degrade their minds, she wasn't sure if killing them wouldn't be kinder than keeping them in tanks and lobotomised for the rest of their lives. And keeping them all in stasis would only kick the whole thing down the road.

Still better than letting them breed, though - if they didn't eat their young, they would quickly outnumber everyone else. You'd probably needed a von Neumann Swarm, as Entrapta called them, to keep up with making tanks for so many snakes. But that was a problem for the time after the war against the Goa'uld.

"Speaking of the court… We still protest being judged by foreigners and Breeders," Alar said.

Someone should tell him that using slurs like 'Breeders' won't make a good impression on others, Catra thought.

"We haven't finalised the curt's makeup yet," Adora said.

"But since you refused to allow us on the court, it's clear that it will be made up by the Breeders and you," Alar retorted. "At least, I hope you will not break your word and hand us over to our enemies."

"We won't," Adora said. "But letting you judge yourself is out of the question. We'll be using Alliance laws for this."

"Laws neither we nor the Breeders had ever adopted," Alar protested.

"That's why it's fair," Catra said, flashing her fangs at him.

"If both you and the Eurondan Alliance agree that something shouldn't be punished, we will defer to that," Adora told him.

Alar scoffed. "Even if there is such a case, I doubt they will be honest enough to admit it!"

"We'll see," Adora said. "Earth has a lot of experience with such trials."

That was… not lying, but not entirely accurate either. But Earth certainly had more experience with such trials - or any trials - than the Princess Alliance, much less the Horde. Etheria would still have to send a judge or more, depending on the final numbers, of course. Couldn't completely leave this up to Earth.

But as long as it didn't directly involve Catra or her love, she was fine with that. They had spent too long on this planet already, in her opinion.

Restored Zone, Main Continent, Euronda, December 20th, 1999 (Earth Time)

As Jack O'Neill glanced around the landscape, waiting for the Eurondan Alliance delegation to arrive, movement in the air caught his attention - was that a bird? There weren't supposed to be any birds on the planet. Entrapta and Carter were still working on picking which bugs to introduce to the Euronda, and the team on Alpha had barely begun to study the gene samples from the Space Nazis' vaults to clone animals from.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to track the thing. It wasn't flying like a bird… Oh. Jack snorted - it was a spy bot. He should have realised that at once - they had been spreading them out over the planet. Soon, they'd cover the system as well. And the squadron of frigates making their way over here was dropping spy bots along their route as well. Once the system was linked to the network, they wouldn't need to open a gate to communicate.

But that was for the future. They still had to end the war here. Formally. The Eurondans had stopped fighting, the Space Nazis because they had lost the capability to hold their enemies back, the Eurondan Alliance because they didn't want to attack Earth and Etheria, but Jack was sure that left alone, they'd pick up where they had stopped as soon as they thought they could get away with it.

"Incoming transport," Campbell reported.

Ah. The Eurondans were arriving. Finally. And the others were stepping out of the tent to welcome them.

Jack joined them.

"Let's hope they'll be reasonable," Adora commented as she watched the plane transfer from flight to hovering.

"They are reasonable - from their point of view," Daniel pointed out. "They have different standards and customs."

"And they were almost wiped out by the Space Nazis," Jack added. "They don't want to forgive and forget." Which he fully understood. Hell, in their place, he'd feel and want the same.

"And they don't have to. That's what the trial is about," Adora said. "But executing people is wrong."

They had talked about that before. And he disagreed. "Depends on the crime. We executed the Nazis for what they had done." That was a precedent he could live very well with. And that hadn't been a miscarriage of justice, either.

"That was fifty years ago," Daniel retorted. "Since then, most countries have abolished the death penalty."

"America hasn't," Jack replied. The transport had landed, and the door was opening.

"Actually, the Supreme Court had it suspended for a time in the 1970s."

"And that didn't last." Some crimes deserved the death penalty. What the Nazis had done - and the Eurondan Nation here - certainly qualified.

"And that was wrong." Adora shook her head. "That the United States is the only country in the Alliance with the death penalty still in effect should show you that."

"We're kinda bad about following others' leads," Jack told her.

"That kind of 'American exceptionalism' is not necessarily a good thing," Daniel, of course, had to say that right before the Eurondans were close enough to overhear any response Jack would have.

So he smiled through the greetings and then followed the others into the tent. At least the food was great again.

The discussion afterwards, though, not so much.

"...why are you protecting those murderers?"

"We aren't protecting them. They'll be tried as you demanded."

"But you won't allow us to execute them. You are still trying to deny justice to our dead!"

Jack had to stop himself from nodding along with Lan's snapped statement. You didn't stab your own side in the back. Even if you disagreed with them.

"Killing people isn't justice," Adora disagreed. "Two wrongs don't make a right."

"Shouldn't the punishment fit the crime?" Liou asked. "You do not treat the thief as you treat the murderer, nor should you treat the murderer as you treat the thief."

"That doesn't mean you should kill people." Adora shook her head. "The death penalty is wrong. Dead people cannot change and become better. Nor can they make up for what they have done. That's not justice."

"What those monsters have done is beyond the pale!" Lan thundered. "And even if they wanted to, they could never make up for their crimes - you cannot bring back the dead!"

"Killing them won't bring back the dead either," Daniel said.

"But it will give us justice," Lan retorted.

Sha're nodded at that, Jack noted.

Daniel didn't seem to have noticed, though. Or, more likely, he was deliberately ignoring it - Jack was sure that Sha're had told him what she thought about the death penalty already if in private.

"You're wrong." Adora wasn't moved. "We're not going to let you kill people just to feel better. That's wrong."

She and Lan stared at each other for a moment. Then Lan slowly tilted his head to the side. "That will make it harder for our people to accept any peace agreement. They have lost too much to forgive easily."

"We're doing what we can to restore what was lost," Adora retorted. "We're going to heal your planet and will help with rebuilding."

"And yet, you will also force us to keep sharing the planet with the people who tried their worst to ruin it and kill us all," Lan said. "It seems as if you're treating them the same as you treat their victims."

Adora frowned, but before she could say anything, Daniel leaned forward. "Is there anything we can do, except for letting you kill or displace people, that would remedy that?"

Lan slowly nodded. "Yes. Without the unprovoked war, without the ruin of our lands, we would have advanced a lot over the last decades. We would have developed better technology and improved our standards of living. All that was lost to us due to the Eugenists. We don't want our world to be merely restored to the status quo, but advanced to the point where we should be."

Ah - they wanted more tech and help as the price for saving the lives of the Space Nazis. A little transparent but not easy to refuse, at least for the Etherians.

Adora frowned. That was… Well, it sounded logical, but it felt wrong to her. "You want us to 'compensate' you for what the Eurondan nation did to you? Beyond restoring the planet's ecosystem and the artificial wombs we promised you?"

"Yes." Lan nodded firmly.

"Just so you won't commit genocide in revenge or execute criminals?" Best to make sure she had understood them correctly.

"So my people will accept the leniency you demand," Lan replied. "We have lost too much otherwise."

"And there's the question of magic. You unilaterally decided to change our world not just once but twice," Liou added. "Without consulting us."

Adora blinked. That was…. "I had to restore magic to allow us to save the Eurondans. And that always comes with a surge of magic power, which I have to direct into something like healing. Otherwise, the risk of magic going out of control and causing potentially catastrophic consequences is too high. In this case, I filtered out the poison and restored life to your world - at least, to a big part of it - with the magic power."

"I don't think you can honestly claim you mind this," Daniel said. "While restoring the world could have been achieved without magic, it would have taken - would take; we're still not done - a lot longer."

"But it was done without asking what we thought about it. You decided to add magic to our world for your convenience without caring whether or not we wanted this," Lan retorted. "That was wrong."

Adora blushed a little. They were correct - she had acted without thinking about their opinion. She had been sure that what she was doing was right. And it hadn't been wrong - it had probably been the only way to save the Eurondan Nation's people from dying. And it had been the best, surely the fastest, way to heal their world, though she had underestimated the difficulty of controlling the magic.

But, yes, she had to admit that she had gone over the heads of pretty much everyone who actually lived on this world. And that wasn't right. "I'm sorry about that," she said.

For a moment, no one said anything, as if they waited for her to add something else. Then Lan spoke up. "Saying you're sorry doesn't change what you did - or make up for it."

"No, it doesn't." Adora agreed.

"But trying to get free technology as compensation for getting your world healed just because we didn't ask you if we should save you is a bit much," Jack said. "Sounds a bit greedy."

"Greedy?" Lan glared at him. "My people were almost wiped out! My world was almost ruined! And you want us to accept that those responsible for unspeakable crimes will not be punished according to our laws!"

"Yes." Adora nodded again. "Because your laws aren't just."

"How dare you insult us like this!" Lan stood up to glare at her.

Adora met his eyes. She knew she was right here.

"Genocide, ethnic cleansing, the death penalty - Earth, Etheria and the Eurondan Alliance, we all feel strongly about all of it," Daniel quickly said with a placating smile. "Very strongly," he added with a nod to the Eurondans. "But we can discuss this and find common ground."

"We are talking about millions murdered in cold blood," Lan spat. "Poisoned and starved, often dying right under the eyes of those who barely survived. If you want us to come to an agreement that will hold, you cannot expect us to bow to your demands without getting anything in return."

"Not counting your world restored and the war ended," Jack said.

"Something we would have achieved ourselves without your interference," Liou countered. "Without your, ah, rivals, our enemies wouldn't have found resources to continue the war for much longer."

"We're also doing what we can to restore your world completely," Adora said. "And we will listen to you about that."

"And protect your world against the Goa'uld," Catra spoke up.

"Both goals would be served better if we had the technology to do so ourselves," Liu said. "Allowing you to focus on your own worlds and allies."

Adora shook her head. "We only share that kind of technology with our allies and friends."

"And we don't trust you not to take the technology and then use it against the Eurondan Nation as soon as we're gone from your world," Catra added.

"You doubt our word?" Lan had been about to sit down, or so it had seemed to Adora, but he kept standing and glared at Catra.

Catra, as Adora should have expected, was entirely unimpressed. She shrugged and nodded. "You've made it clear that you answer to your people, so if they think you're too soft, they'll replace you with someone else."

Lan clenched his teeth at that. "That is why we need an agreement that will be accepted by my people."

"And why we need a squadron of frigates in orbit," Catra muttered at Adora's side.

Adora shook her head. This was wrong - they shouldn't use force, or the threat of force, to make the Eurondans agree to their demands. But giving in to their demands wasn't right either.

"Well, I am sure we can reach a compromise," Daniel said. "I doubt you can honestly argue that you would have achieved the technology to build spaceships that can travel to other solar systems if the war hadn't happened. Or our weapon technology. But there are examples of advanced technology we could share. Namely, the artificial wombs we mentioned before. And food production. Construction. Media. We can boost your standard of living significantly."

Adora nodded.

"What exactly are you offering?" Liu asked as Lan sat down again.

Adora smiled and tried not to sigh. This would be tiring. Such negotiations always were. But as long as they reached an agreement in the end that they could live with, it would be worth it.

Gate Room, Euronda, December 20th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"...so, we'll still share our technology with them as long as it's not weapon technology? Even though they're not in the Alliance?"

Samantha Carter nodded at Entrapta's question. "Within limits. Mostly the artificial wombs and technology to support their reconstruction and agricultural efforts."

Entrapta cocked her head to the side. "Ah. So, nothing really new."

"Not for us," Sam confirmed. "But we have to ensure it cannot be used to develop weapons before we hand anything over." Daniel had been more than a bit hasty in his attempt to continue the negotiations.

"Ah." Her friend pouted for a moment. "That's going to be hard. You can turn a lot of advanced technology into weapons. The artificial wombs could be used to breed creatures that can fight if you repurpose them. And any construction technology can be used to build fortifications. And any bioreactors could probably produce bioweapons instead of food."

Sam suppressed a wince. Entrapta was a great friend and an incredibly nice person. But she also had a sometimes scary talent for building weapons. That she didn't always understand when one should construct weapons and when not didn't help. "They can already grow bioweapons, I think - they must have bioreactors to feed their people - and they can construct bunkers. New technology would only speed either process up and not add new capabilities. And I don't think we'll have to worry about animals bred for war."

"Are you sure? When I talked with Loki and the others on Alpha about the genetic samples of Eurondan fauna we've sent them, they noticed that we lacked sufficient predators to keep all the fast-breeding herbivore species in check, and they had several ideas about making a few of the animals we do have samples of into more effective predators to compensate, and some of those would make them good at fighting soldiers as well. Like paralysing tentacles and adaptive camouflage. Or glands to produce aerosolised venom."

Maybe Sam shouldn't have focused on expanding the sensor net on Euronda and restring the life support systems in the Eurondan Nation's defence complex for so long. "I don't think the Eurondans have the capability to genetically engineer species to that degree," she said. I sure hope so, she added to herself. "But we will make sure to install safeguards."

"In the artificial wombs? I thought we wanted to let them build them," Entrapta said. "And given the Eurondan Nation's skills with software that we saw after analysing the programs used to hack Stargate Command, and which the Eurondan Alliance should have as well, or they would have lost the war already, right? - I think they would detect any such programs."

"Yes, that wouldn't work," Sam agreed. "But we can monitor the wombs and the Stargate with our scanners. Though I think they will focus on restoring their world before starting another war."

Entrapta looked sceptical. "Are you sure? It would be logical, but people aren't often logical. The Eurondan Alliance don't seem to like us even though we restored most of their world and ended the war."

"We were a bit heavy-handed," Sam pointed out. "We started altering their world without consulting them. And we returned magic." And stopped them from finishing off their enemies.

"But we're helping them! Their world was dead!" Entrapta protested. "And magic is a natural part of their world!"

"Not everyone likes magic," Sam said. And she couldn't help suspecting that part of the reason for the way the Eurondan Alliance had reacted was that their leaders weren't used to dealing with women in positions of authority. Especially young women. But that could just be Sam's own biases, based on her experiences on Earth, influencing her.

"That's stupid." Entrapta pouted. "That's like not liking science."

Sam agreed, though she was aware that many students didn't like science, at least in school. And the less said about the religious zealots on Earth and their issues with science (and logic and reality itself), the better. "Yes, it is. But that's what the Eurondan Alliance thinks about it." Or claimed to think - the General was quite convinced that a significant part of the Eurondan Alliance's complaints were just to support their negotiations. "Anyway," she went on, "we're supposed to go over what kind of technology we can safely share with the Eurondan Alliance to help them recover."

"Hm. We need to know what they already can do," Entrapta said. "So we can cover the gaps."

Sam almost snorted at the thought of asking Lan about their technology and how the man would react. "Even if they already have the technology, their production capacity is almost assuredly very limited, so providing them with tools and machines would still be very helpful." And, a cynical part of her added in the back of her mind, it would allow some of Earth's industry to offload soon-to-be-obsolete products on the Alliance's pay.

"Right!" Entrapta nodded. "And we can check with our scanners where they have the worst deficits."

That was essentially spying on the Eurondan Alliance, but Sam didn't mind doing it if it helped them reach an agreement. They would be spying on the Eurondan Alliance anyway to ensure that they would not attempt to restart the war.

Royal Palace, Bright Moon, Etheria, December 20th, 1999 (Earth Time)

"Why do we care what those Eurondans want, anyway? We saved their planet, and as thanks, they make demands of us? We should just finish fixing their planet and then leave!"

Frosta had a point, in Catra's opinion. Not that she would ever say so, of course. And the princess was still wrong, anyway.

"We can't! If we leave, the Eurondan Alliance will kill the Eurondan Nation's people!" Adora blurted out.

"Then we evacuate them to another planet," Frosta retorted. "They tried to kill the Eurondan Alliance first, and almost succeeded, so they can't complain about having to move."

"That wouldn't be right either," Adora told her. "Ethnic cleansing is wrong."

"And it would put a strain on our logistics," Mermista added. "We couldn't just drop them on another planet - if we find one, anyway - without any infrastructure. Even if we limit our investment to the bare minimum for them to live, we're talking about building an entire country from scratch - including transportation and industry."

"If we use the Tok'ra's technology, we could quickly build up underground bases for everyone," Entrapta cut in. "That would be much faster than building on the surface. And we could duplicate their bioreactors to produce food." She looked at her multitool. "That wouldn't be a heavy strain on our logistics, actually."

Adora looked taken aback for a moment.

Frosta nodded with a smile: "That would leave them like they were during the war. They're used to that."

Oh, for…! Catra snorted. "And you think they'll change like that? No matter how good their new planet might be, they'd still prefer their own world. And they'll blame us for losing their world." And without any help and support, they would be stuck living as if they were still at war for a long, long time. That kind of life would only make them even worse.

"So?" Frosta shrugged and narrowed her eyes. "They started the war."

Catra clenched her teeth. She knew what the princess was hinting at. The Horde had started a war as well. But…

"And we ended the war," Adora said, frowning at Frosta. "We can't turn our back on them. They need our help - both the Eurondan Nation and the Eurondan Alliance."

"Then they should act like it! Show some gratitude!" Frosta snapped.

"They're trying to milk us," Glimmer added.

"We did act a bit… high-handed, I think," Bow said.

"Yes," Adora agreed.

"We didn't have much choice," Glimmer retorted. "And we did the right thing. They're trying to make us reward them with the threat of sinking as low as their enemies did. And that is not acceptable!"

"But we need to help them!" Perfuma protested. "Without our help, it'll be decades, possibly centuries, before their world's ecology recovers."

"We will help them." Adora shook her head. "But we can't just leave them be, or they'll never change for the better."

"We can't exactly make them change," Mermista said.

Catra wasn't so sure about that. There were ways to change a culture - the Horde had done that to the Scorpion Kingdom. Even now, the new Scorpion Kingdom was very different from the kingdom that Scorpia's ancestors had ruled. It was heavily influenced by the Horde survivors living there. So much, Catra wouldn't want to live there - she would constantly be reminded of her past.

"That's another reason why we shouldn't force the Eurondan Nation off their world; if they learn to live together, they'll change. Both sides," Glimmer said.

If, Catra thought.

"So, we'll bribe them with our tech?" Mermista asked. "And station a task force there to make them play nice with each other, all for their own benefit?"

"Essentially, yes," Adora told her. "If we share our technology, they can rebuild on their own. Mostly - we still need to help with restoring their world's biosphere."

"And Earth will support them with tools, machines and other stuff that is going obsolete but will still work perfectly fine," Bow added.

Perfuma nodded. "That's a good thing - otherwise, they would probably throw away all those things, and that would cause a lot of environmental damage." She frowned. "Earth really should stop being so wasteful."

"That's how they do things," Mermista said with a shrug. "Anyway, what about the proposal for tomorrow's meeting?"

Adora frowned a little - she was in charge of the meeting, and Catra knew that her lover didn't like it when others tried to do her job for her - but nodded. "Yes. We've collected a list of supplies and technology that we think can be safely sent to Euronda. Mostly old agricultural and industrial tools and machinery from Earth and our artificial womb technology. We'll have to build the wombs first, though, until the Eurondans can build their own."

"And what about magic?" Scorpia asked.

Adora winced.

Glimmer scowled. "We don't have enough teachers for our allies; we surely can't spare them for the Eurondans."

Catra agreed, though she was sure that the Eurondans wouldn't like that. Although she wouldn't put it past them to be glad that no 'foreigner' tried to teach them how to work magic on their world. Actually, that would be a good way to make them refuse such an offer - make it patronisingly enough, and Lan would probably refuse out of principle just to avoid more 'foreign meddling'.

Which brought up another question. "What about religion?" Catra asked. If the task force sent there came from Third Fleet - and they were closer than Second and First Fleet - then that meant Priest would send his best, so to speak.

Adora grimaced. "I'll tell them that they can't proselytise."

Everyone nodded, but Catra was sure it wouldn't help much. Priest was good at getting around such orders. Probably by avoiding open proselytising but having the Clones 'honestly answer questions' or something like that.

And then Adora would frown but accept it.

Restored Zone, Main Continent, Euronda, December 21st, 1999 (Earth Time)

Jack O'Neill was really sick of these meetings. To think a few of his fellow generals, and a number of people from the State Department, were complaining about him 'involving himself with diplomatic ventures that aren't the concern of the military'! It wasn't as if he wanted to meddle in these affairs.

But he wasn't about to leave it all to the Etherians and Daniel. They were both a bit too idealistic and a bit too… nice was a good word, in Jack's opinion. Sometimes, you had to be a bastard if you wanted to do your job as a leader. Every officer worth their salt learned that. And Jack would rather take that role than foist it on any of his friends.

And he had grown to dislike the Eurondan Alliance. At least their diplomats. They weren't as bad as the Eurondan Nation, not that that was hard since Alar's bunch were genocidal Space Nazis. But Lan was, as Cambell had put it, 'a right sort of prick', and Liou was far too smooth and smug for Jack's taste.

Sure, they had more than enough reasons to want the Space Nazis gone - something Jack agreed with - but the way they went about it was annoying. It was as if they were using their dead as arguments to get more technology. Like selling out, in a way. If they couldn't get justice, then money would do nicely.

"Let's hope they never meet an ambulance chaser," he muttered as he studied the horizon.

"Hm?" Catra made a questioning sound next to him.

"Nothing," Jack replied. "Just thinking out loud."

"Mh."

They stared at the hills in the distance in silence for a bit. Then Carter reported that the Alliance transport was approaching, and Jack sighed. Time to deal with the pricks again.

And to try to ignore all the 'concerns' and 'suggestions' he had heard in all the meetings he had had to attend back on Earth when he should have been taking care of his unit instead. It was kind of fitting that actual combat missions and operations didn't draw a tenth of the attention from that crowd compared to the hint of potential profit for their lobbyists.

On the other hand, that was actually a good thing. If they tried to interfere with the war, it would be a debacle.

"Those designs do not look very advanced. We had similar machines before the war," Liou complained.

"They aren't advanced at all, so your people won't need a lot of training to use them."

Jack O'Neill grinned at Glimmer's reply. It was evasive and misleading but technically correct. "We can't exactly send an army of instructors while we're waging a war against body-snatching aliens," he added. "We need them ourselves." Hell, sparing the ships and Clones to watch over the planet and keep the Eurodans from genociding each other would already be a bit of a strain. Tough just a little bit, as long as the Alliance didn't actually occupy the planet. That would be a mess.

"So you foist your outdated equipment on us?" Lan scoffed.

"You can use it, can't you?" Glimmer's smile showed all her teeth.

"We could use more advanced machinery as well," Liou retorted. He made a point of looking at Emily standing guard in the back. "Especially if they were autonomous."

"You'd have trouble maintaining, much less replacing them," Jack said.

"They look rather rugged. By the time they would need replacement, I think we would have learned how to maintain and build them." Liou smiled. "Our weapons are more advanced than the tools you offer, after all."

"As I said, we need the advanced technology ourselves," Jack repeated himself before Entrapta could offer to build some agricultural bots that not even Etheria had yet.

"So you say," Lan said. "Yet you can spare the time and supplies to save our enemies."

"And your world," Glimmer said. "We prioritise saving lives."

Daniel nodded. "And with your war won, you can focus on rebuilding. You won't need to concentrate on military industry any more."

Lan scoffed. "With an Empire of hostile aliens waiting in the skies, who, as you told us, would turn us into primitive, uneducated slaves? We need advanced weapons more than ever!"

"We'll station a task force in your system to protect you," Adora told him.

"And what if that's not enough to defend our world?" Liou asked.

Glimmer shrugged. "Even if we handed over all our technology to you, by the time you could manage to build enough spaceships and advanced weapons to actually make a difference, the war will likely be over."

Lan ground his teeth at that, but Glimmer was right. Earth, with magnitudes more industrial potential and people, was already struggling to catch up. Euronda wouldn't meaningfully contribute to the war against the Goa'uld in time to matter. Not even if, by some miracle, all the survivors on both sides decided to unite and work together with all their might.

Of course, they couldn't be trusted anyway.

"That seems optimistic," Liou said. "Wars rarely go according to plan, as our enemies found out. Wouldn't it be wise to at least have contingency plans in case your war will last for several decades?"

"Yes," Glimmer told him with another toothy smile. "But if the war lasts for so long, then the last thing we would want was to send your people to the frontlines. You already suffered so much and barely survived your own war."

"We could still provide you with war materials if we had an automated industry set up."

"Oh, we can do that ourselves," Entrapta cut in with a wide and honest smile. "We've been working on automated production facilities, like for our spy bots. Don't worry about that. In the long term, our main bottleneck is manpower, though, in a pinch, we can ramp up cloning, I guess."

The Eurondans didn't like hearing that. Not at all. Hell, Jack wasn't sure he liked it, though for different reasons - more Clones? Or, even worse, cloning humans? That was a can of worms he'd rather shoot into the sun.

Adora nodded. "So, thank you for your offer, but we won't burden you with such demands. You can focus on rebuilding your world with our help."

Her smile wasn't as smug as Catra's, Jack noted, but she was clearly - at least in his impression - at least a little glad to tell off the Eurondans.

As was he. Though not as much as he was relieved that with this done, he could finally focus back on his actual job.