Chapter 2
Nick, still pretending to be Pelops, looked at the Goa'uld style long range communicator that looked like nothing more than a small metal ball. The device, no bigger than a baseball, was a combination of impressive and stupid, like much Goa'uld technology. It was impressive because it could communicate throughout the majority of the galaxy while being so small by tapping into subspace. Stupid because instead of a hologram or screen, the face of the person on the other end appeared on the ball itself. The face option could be turned off, but was necessary for the conversation he was having.
He looked at the face of Nirrti currently within a rather fetching female host that appeared to be of Indian descent. Nirrti was known for changing her hosts fairly often compared to almost all other Goa'uld. Most Goa'uld wore their hosts for thousands of years, so Nirrti changing every few hundred years or so was considered odd. She tended to stick to female hosts, but had been known to wear men every so often.
“So, Ra is dead. I take it you only let me know this because you want something.”
Nirrti nodded, “I do. I wish to work together. With Ra dead the others will fall into fighting over scraps of his domain. While they are distracted by each other we could work freely for the first time in thousands of years. Together we could make immense progress in creating the ultimate host.”
Nick nodded in understanding, “Ah, you wish to attempt to make a Hok'tar once more.”
Nirrti sneared, “Ra was a fool for banning my research.”
Nick snorted, “As if that would stop you.”
“Ah, you know me so well, my Pelops.”
He felt a shudder go down his spine at that. Pelops and Nirrti, like all Goa'uld, had a complex relationship. They had attempted to kill each other for research data more than once. They had also hate-fucked many times over the years. It seemed Nirrti was more interested in fucking than fighting at the moment. He'd be more willing to go for fighting but he was nowhere near ready for that. Fucking was right out because just the thought grossed him out.
“I want to trade for data on the original Jaffa modifications.”
He raised an eyebrow at that, “That data has been public knowledge among the system lords for thousands of years.”
Nirrti smirked, “I want what you hid from the others.”
Nick searched his memories and then snorted. Of course Pelops had held back some information. He'd once planned to use it to make even more powerful Jaffa to take over as the Supreme System Lord. Much like all his other plans, Pelops flat out forgot about it. He considered for a moment before he nodded, “That can be arranged, for the appropriate price.”
“State it.”
“I want all your data on Asgard genetics. I know you've had the opportunity to scan them.”
Nirrti looked slightly confused but then shrugged, “I do not have much, but I can pass along what I do have. Do we have a deal?”
Nick chuckled, “Of course we do my dear. With Ra dead we must do all we can in the persuit of knowledge before another meathead takes over.”
Nirrti laughed and hung up.
Goa'uld had terrible phone etiquette. He stuffed the small communication device in the pocket of his robes and made his way over to a much larger version attached to a console. With a though, he created a data crystal with his nanomachines and some spare carbon then stuck it into the appropriate slot. In just moments he sent Nirrti the requested data. It would probably take her a while longer to send the data he'd requested. He wasn't worried about her sending it. If there was one thing they'd never done to each other, it was deal in bad faith. Researchers among the Goa'uld were far too rare to risk pissing off one of the few people who might have the data you needed one day.
With that taken care of, he turned and walked out of his private area within the temple. The moment he stepped through his doors he was joined by both M'reena and Ro'ak, his loyal shadows. He paused when they arrived at the main entrance of the temple to let his gaze sweep over the vastly changed city before him.
The houses made of mud and sticks were long gone and had been replaced with far better looking homes made of a variety of modern and exotic materials. He allowed the people to decide what kind of home they wanted to live in from a list of amazing prefabs he'd modified to look more Goa'uld in design from the ancient repository.
The main material making up the exterior walls looked almost metallic. Anyone familiar with Atlantis would recognize the material he used, which was a mixture of multiple elements put together in such a way as to give the greatest structural integrity possible. It was no lie to say the houses of his people could survive almost any natural disaster.
The entire city had been torn down and rebuilt completely within the last four months using only repurposed Goa'uld technology. It was amazing what could be done with a little bit of imagination.
Goa'uld were idiots. It couldn't be said often enough. He understood they wanted to keep their subjects down and ignorant to keep them from rebelling. It was just how far they went that was stupid. It was a common practice for Goa'uld to go to a planet, and if there was Naquadah near the gate to take the planet and mine it. Once the mine nearest the gate ran out, they left. Even if there was ten of thousands of tons of Naquadah left on the planet, they left.
Because it was inconvenient to transport the Naquadah further than a slave could walk in a couple of hours.
Morons!
Even worse, their mining methods were so stupidly slow. A steel pickaxe was the height of technology given to the miners. More often than not it was stone pickaxes!
MORONS!
Giving the slaves better and more efficient mining tools wasn't going to lead to rebellions! In fact, it had done the exact opposite for him! His slaves, which he planned to free very soon, were ecstatic when he provided them with a much higher tech method of mining using heavy machinery. It was ungodly easy to re-purpose the matter deconstruction and reconstruction of the transport rings and turn that into a moderately sized device that was about three feet long and six inches in diameter. It was powered by a small Naquadah reactor in a back pack.
When used, the beam would come out of the device and de-materialize whatever it was pointed at and transfer it to a specific storage area where it was reconstituted. It was crude in a way as it didn't really care about the reconstitution process all that much. The material gathered that way was then automatically purified into different materials and then organized for later use.
Could the device be used as a weapon? Oh hell yeah, a goddamn terrifying one. One sweep of it over a person would slice them in half and reconstitute the missing portion as a misshapen pile of sludge.
Or at least it could have if he had been stupid enough to not put in safety systems. A basic life signs detector prevented any accidental, or deliberate, attempts to hit a living person with the beam.
Just that single device allowed for a single person to mine ridiculous amounts. The slaves were meeting their previous daily quotas in MINUTES.
Needless to say, the amount of available Naquadah for use skyrocketed at an unprecedented rate. With so much available it was being used for things like the house construction without even coming close to taxing the every growing surplus.
And that was just from one simple modification of a common device in use by all Goa'uld everywhere!
Add in everything else he'd done to make life better for everyone and he was more popular than the real Pelops could have ever imagined being. He'd improved farming with industrial machines and an amazing bit of tech that easily converted ocean water into drinking water with a desalinization process that he still couldn't believe worked so well with so little power. Relatively speaking. That basically gave everyone unlimited clean water to drink and use for watering produce.
It was easy enough to build a pipeline to bring the water to the people over the intervening distance.
Most importantly, with the water came indoor plumbing and a proper sewage systems. The city had almost all the modern amenities including power and proper HVAC systems. The peak of summer and winter on this particular planet could get pretty brutal. It led to many deaths among the populace every year. This year no one would die of heat stroke when the middle of summer arrived soon.
Aside from that, he'd also repurposed the propulsion systems from the Death Glider, specifically the ones that let it hover in place. He'd lowered their power output drastically and shrunk them in size. After that he slapped them on the bottom of a reinforced slab of metal, added a handle and ended up with a hovering dolly to transport heavy items on top of. It's what anyone used to move anything with any weight around.
That was about it for the civilians. He'd had a ton more fun designing new stuff for the Jaffa.
Like it or not, if he was going to free people from slavery under the Goa'uld, he would need an army to do it with. He was for sure a powerful individual that was essentially immortal, but even that didn't guarantee anything. He could think of half a dozen ways he could be captured or trapped in a way he couldn't escape. One simple way even the Goa'uld could execute would be trapping him inside of a force field bubble with signal interference.
Boom, stuck. He'd be trapped for as long as they could power the force field. Which would, essentially, be until they either died out or the universe ran out of Naquadah. Or, more likely, one Goa'uld killed another and he was forgotten until the power ran out.
Anyway! The point was, he was immortal, not invincible or omnipotent. Thus the need for an army. Anyone with a lick of sense will take one look at the Jaffa and laugh. They could fight, but anyone who saw the show would know that the UASF constantly had the upper hand in engagements even when outnumbered. Not always, of course, but the majority of the time they kick the shit out of the Jaffa with relative ease.
He couldn't have that!
So, his first step was a complete redesign of the Jaffa's armor. Here was the first place he'd truly cheated using his Ancient knowledge and maybe copied a bit from Anubis and his Kull Warriors. He'd designed an armor under layer that could absorb and disperse energy. There was a limit, but it could easily disperse the energy of ten Ma'Tok staff blasts per second. Unfortunately, it suffered from the same weakness as the Kull Warriors, something thin and sharp could pierce it. Knives with sufficiently sharp edges would work as well.
The next part designed in a way that the Jaffa wouldn't refuse to use it. He'd wanted to make them power armor, it was fuckin' POWER ARMOR. But just broaching the idea upset Ro'ak. Oh the man hadn't said a word, but he'd grit his teeth and stood a little straighter. The man might as well have shouted how much he hated the idea.
So, instead, he designed armor similar to what the Jaffa currently used. The armor set was a cuirass, segmented armor for the whole arm, thigh guards, and shin guards along with far more practical boots. The armor was made of thin plates of a Naquadah Trinium Alloy from the repository. He'd tried, and failed, to make the Asgard Alloy that added carbon to that mix to make it even stronger. He was willing to be he was missing some catalyst or processing detail that made it work properly. Annoying but survivable.
The armor basically ignored staff blasts as irrelevant. The big yellow balls of plasma barely left their signature scorch marks on it. More importantly was it's ability to handle fire from more kinetic weapons, such as assault rifles and sub-machine guns. It was tough, protected everything vital and looked slick as hell painted matte black.
His true pride and joy though, was his design for their new primary weapon. The standard staff weapon was unwieldy and took years of training to be worthwhile in combat. Teal'c made it look easy, but he was an elite warrior trained from a young age to be the best. The average Jaffa, on the other hand, could barely hit the broad side of a barn from more than fifty feet away.
For proof go watch the episode where Sam showed up an Elite warrior using a staff weapon by out shooting him with her FN P90.
The other issue he had with the Ma'Tok staff weapon was its fire rate. Compared to even a semi-automatic like the Berreta M9's used by the SGC it was slow as hell.
So, he sort of copied the Kull Warriors once more. Though he didn't go with a small wrist mounted plasma repeater like they had. Instead he designed a whole new rifle-style platform to support it and its power system. It looked similar to the assault rifle from the original Halo game but fired small yellow balls of high energy plasma at high speed.
The rifle had settings for both fire speed with the classic safe, semi, and full auto options. It also had a power selector for low, mid, and high to change just how much energy the plasma balls contained. The low setting would only actually work on unarmored opponents. The mid setting was strong enough to blast through regular Jaffa armor and hit the person wearing it. The high setting would go through the armor, the person wearing the armor, and the back of the armor and might have enough energy left to damage the armor of the person behind the target.
Mid and high would be the most common settings and, obviously, drained the most energy. That combined with the high rate of fire ate through a normal Ma'Tok's liquid Naquadah energy cell in hours at most. Keeping in mind those cells could power staff weapons for a hundred years of normal use, easily. So, he designed not only larger ones, but made them hot-swappable similar to a firearm's magazine. Letting his troops fire away until the weapon drained, then swap to a new power source and resume firing.
He didn't stop there though. He'd also made a shoulder mounted system similar to a bazooka, only slightly bulkier. The shoulder mounted canon fired a plasma bolt as powerful as those fired from the staff canons of an Al'kesh bomber. To cram that much power in a smaller system required him to install capacitors that needed thirty seconds to charge before a shot could be fired.
The last item was by far his favorite, the Squid Launcher. He wanted to make sure he had a powerful and reusable anti-vehicle system his Jaffa could use. The largest man portable system he'd made was similar to the Javelin launcher, except it didn't fire an anti-tank missile. After using its onboard systems to lock onto a target, the Squid Launcher fired an Ancient Drone.
The same ones used to fight against the Wraith. The drones looked like yellow and black mechanical squids, hence the name. When fired they would glow with bright yellow light and chase down the target they were locked onto and pierce them before detonating. The drones were capable of piercing any shields the Goa'uld could deploy as a defense. Anything smaller than a Ha'tak would likely be taken out with a single shot.
Death Gliders, Tel'tak's and Al'kesh didn't stand a chance against a Squid Launcher.
That was all he'd managed to do while working to rebuild his peoples society into something better. He still needed to design weapons platforms such as tanks. Then completely redesign his fleet. The Goa'uld ships sucked and he planned to take what he could from Ancient designs and make something new that appealed to his more human desire for moar dakka!!
For now, he was heading to the Jaffa training area where he'd set up a hardlight system to help them train against solid targets that could fight back using stun weapons. They were currently training in group assault tactics meant for sweeping through captured Ha'tak to claim them. The ships might suck, but they contained lots of nice resources to claim.
That was for later though. For now his Jaffa needed to get trained on using their new weapons and armor. Which, judging by what he could see, they were doing remarkably good at. His Jaffa were going to cut through regular Jaffa like a hot knife through melted butter.
He left after observing for a bit, “Ro'ak, make sure the Jaffa continue their training until their success rate is at least ninety percent with no more than five percent casualties.”
Ro'ak slammed his fist into his new breastplate in salute, “As you command, My Lord.”
He turned to M'reena, “How are the slaves doing acclimating to the changes in their schedules?”
M'reena smiled, “They are doing well, though I have heard some minor talk of boredom with little to do in their new free time.”
Nick tilted his head thinking about that. It made sense. The slaves used to be forced to work most of, if not all of, their day from dawn to dusk. There was no way he was going to run the place like an evil corporation. So, he instituted a work schedule he would enjoy himself. For a start, the work day was limited to eight hours. While on shift slaves were given two fifteen minute breaks as well as a half hour lunch. Or, they could take all of their breaks at once for an hour long lunch, or leave an hour early if they take no breaks. Whatever they wanted to do as long as they put in seven full hours of actual work.
Improvements to mining and farming technology meant the slaves not only worked fewer hours, but it was a hell of a lot easier on their bodies as well. Needless to say, they loved Nick for their improved lives. Though it did lead to the current problem.
They had all this new free time and very little to do in it. It wasn't like the Goa'uld had a thriving entertainment industry either. No movies, no television, no internet, hell even plays were extremely rare. At most they did some mournful singing and the occasional duel between Jaffa. That... was about it.
He'd have to look into a way to fix that. Education would be one way to do it. He nodded at that thought and decided that would be his next project after freeing the slaves. Mandatory education for anyone under sixteen and optional education for anyone older. He had plenty of information to design a curriculum for any subject from beginning to end.
Frankly, he had enough information to get any doctorate he wanted. His education status was PhD, yes.
“I'll take care of it after I return.”
That got both of their attention. They'd been walking toward the Stargate for a bit now and he only just revealed his intention to step through it. Unlike other Goa'uld, he wasn't willing to leave such easy access to his territory just sitting out in the open with a few Jaffa standing guard. He'd had the gate moved into a hardened facility built just to store it. Then he'd installed a force field to prevent unauthorized entry.
It might have been a bit overkill for the moment as no one visited his planet, but he planned to poke the hornets nest soon and would need the protection.
“My Lord, where are we heading?”
Nick chuckled at that and looked to his first prime, “I, am going to a secret location. You and M'reena are waiting here for my return.”
“My Lord, with all due respect, you shouldn't go anywhere alone. If we were to lose you...”
Nick chuckled, “It will be fine. There is nothing living where I am going, I will be fine and I will return quickly.” He turned slightly serious, “I am ordering you to stay put.”
Ro'ak saluted, but didn't look thrilled. Throughout his time impersonating Pelops Ro'ak had gone from a stoic silent warrior to more of an advisor and bodyguard willing to speak his mind where he felt necessary. Something that Nick had encouraged. He might be the smartest living thing on the planet, but that didn't mean that Nick knew everything and wouldn't miss something. It was always best to have someone to question potentially stupid ideas.
Upon entering the facility, Nick made his way directly toward the Stargate. He stopped in front of the large ring and waved his hand causing it to activate with its customary kawoosh as the unstable vortex burst from the center. The action earned some gasps from the nearby Jaffa at his 'display of power'. Frankly, it was an easy trick where he mentally fed coordinates into his modified Kara Kesh wrist device and used it to remotely dial the gate.
“I will return shortly.”
Nick stepped through the gate and arrived in the asteroid field he'd built his outpost at. He turned and looked at the newer version of the Stargate, like the ones they used in the Pegasus Galaxy. He chose the newer model because he could program a custom address into it that had nothing to do with its location within the galaxy. Between that and the force field that activated whenever it received an incoming wormhole, no one would be making it into his outpost without his permission.
So, he could be forgiven for being rather shocked when a bright white light followed by a musical sounding tone deposited him in an unfamiliar area. The next instant he was surrounded by a fluctuating force field that kept him trapped in place.
“How unexpected.”
Nick's gaze shifted toward the voice and suddenly everything made sense. Sitting, or maybe standing, behind a control console was an Asgardian. It looked like he'd been kidnapped the moment he'd returned to his base. Perhaps he should have been a little more paranoid and made sure the sensors had been fully functional and set to send him a report before he returned. Then again, how was he supposed to expected the Asgard of all people to randomly find his little outpost?
Deciding to be polite he calmly addressed the Asgardian, “Greetings. I'm Nicholas, who do I have the honor of meeting?”
The little gray Asgardian stared at Nicholas for a moment before blinking its large black eyes. Finally the smaller being answered in a flat voice, “I am Halldor a Captain of the Asgardian fleet. And you...” It was hard to tell with the Asgard, but he seemed to be frowning? “You are impossible.”
Nick crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at Halldor, “You're no Asgardian. I can see some minor resemblance, but you are far too small and frail to be one of the noble warriors of Othala.”
Halldor's large black eyes focused on Nick like a laser. From the information in his memories, the Asgard should be much closer to humans in size and physically stronger with a large cranium and all black eyes.
“I assure you that I am Asgardian. Though your kind should be fully aware of that.”
“My kind? Oh! You mean Goa'uld. You should look closer at the scans I assume you've made of me. Really look at the symbiote.”
Halldor moved a stone on his control console and called up a hologram that zoomed in on the sybiote that was still wrapped around Nick's spine. Again, it was hard to tell, but there was a look of surprise on Halldor's face, “It appears to be brain dead.”
Nick nodded, “Yup. It was once Pelops. It thought that a few thousand years of memory made its mind strong enough to take on the millions of years in mine.”
Halldor said nothing but the hologram changed as he moved a different stone on his console. It showed a live scan of Nick's brain which, aside from the brain matter that the Pelops symbiote was attached to, was all nanomachines. Halldor looked from the image to Nick, “What are you?”
“That... is a really weird story. My name is Nicholas and I'm from Earth.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“I know! But it's true. Born and raised there with my other fellow humans. Then, one day, I wake up on an alien moon near a strange temple and everything is different. Watch your scanners closely.”
Seeing Halldor shift his gaze, Nick transforms all of his body, but what is needed to sustain Pelops, into nanomachines. He smirks at the sight of Halldor jerking back in actual shock, the stoic Asgard facade breaking down for a brief moment. It came back rapidly but Halldor was clearly disturbed as he said, “You are a machine.”
Nick focused slightly and everything turned back to flesh, “Check again.”
Now Halldor was clearly confused, “That's impossible. Swapping between organic and inorganic states in such a manner is... Impossible.”
Nick chuckled, “Yeah. Don't ask me. Anyway! After waking up and being turned into whatever I am now, I took some time to explore the changes to myself and my new surroundings. The temple and the nearby ruins were the only close things, but just a short walk away was the Stargate.”
Halldor shifted a stone on his console and for a brief moment the blackness outside shifted to hyperspace then shifted back. Halldor looked as the results of whatever scan he was performing, “I see the remains of an Ancient temple. There is a standard platform for holding a Stargate, though the device itself seems to be missing.”
Nick nodded, “I'll get to that. So, while exploring the temple I came across a strange device. When I looked at it, it reached out, grabbed my head, and pulled me in to look at it. Then information flooded my mind. It took a while but I processed all of it.”
Halldor stared at Nick for a long moment, “Are you saying you contain all the knowledge the Ancient placed within a repository?”
Nick nodded, “Everything from the beginning of their recorded history up to their return to this galaxy.” He reached up and tapped his temple, “All organized, cross referenced, and stored in here.”
“Impressive. Continue.”
Nick nodded, “So, after the information was downloaded into my new mind, I relised I had the means and the ability to build a small ship capable of entering hyperspace. I'm sure a scan of the planet will show how little raw Naquadah is available on it. So, in order to leave the planet safely, I cannibalized everything I could, including the Stargate. Then I left.”
Halldor nodded, “I understand. I believe that's when we noticed you.”
Nick looked curios, “I thought you found me on accident or by coincidence.”
Halldor shook his head, “The Asgard monitor all hyperspace activity within this galaxy. Your hyperdrive was not initially flagged because its signature was logged as friendly. A left over from when the Ancients still roamed the galaxy, for a time. It was your approach toward Earth that alerted us to your presence. Unfortunately, matters within the Ida galaxy prevented someone from being dispatched immediately.”
Halldor moved one of the stones on his console again and once more they dipped into hyperspace for a few seconds. When the swirling light of hyperspace faded, Nick could see his outpost through the window, “It came as quite a surprise to find a brand new Ancient outpost facility under construction when I first arrived. When I reported such to the Asgard Council, they determined it was important for one of us to be here when someone arrived via the Stargate within the facility.”
Halldor's black eyes focused on Nick, “I must admit to some... annoyance at having to wait so long for your return.”
Nick found himself slightly surprised. It took a quick look through his memories to find a throw away line from SG-1 where Thor admitted that the Asgard monitored all hyperspace traffic in the Milky Way. If he remembered right it was right after the Prometheus first launched. Thor used it to hatch a plan with Samantha Carter to take out Replicators threatening Othala...
Replicators! Fuck. He realized he might be in a little trouble here if he couldn't fully convince Halldor that he was nothing like those mindless bugs. Hopefully this wouldn't get worse than him already being stuck in a force field bubble.
“Sorry for making you wait. Once I got settled here and began mining the proper materials I began creating probes to send out to scout the nearby systems. I ran across a planet held under the control of the Goa'uld Pelops. On my visit he attempted to take control of me, it did not work out well for him. However, I was able to learn much of the current state of the galaxy from his memories. As the process of me being 'taken over' was witnessed, I used my new identity as Pelops to begin making changes to the planet he was ruling over. If you want, I can provide the address for you to check it over.”
“Do so.”
Nick noded and held his hand up. A stream of nanomachines came out and began shaping themselves into the constellations for the gate address. Once more there was a flash of hyperspace travel and then they had arrived.
Hmmm, this made Nick think he would need to install surface to air facilities to deal with things like this in the future. As it was, no one on the planet would have any idea they were floating above the planet in an Asgard ship. He had no intention of fighting the Asgard, but good air defenses similar to what the Tollan used would be great to protect against potential threats from the Goa'uld.
Moments after they arrived, Halldor spoke up, “I see. Though still primitive in many ways the clear uplifting of the locals is obvious.”
Nick nodded, “I couldn't stand seeing the slaves, or even the Jaffa, living in squalor. If you look you can find some of the Jaffa under my command training with new weapons. My ultimate goal is the freedom of humans and Jaffa alike. However, I am but a single being, even if I am a super weird one. I just want to do what I can and I'll need help along the way.” He smiled, “I could really use some Asgardian help.”
Halldor considered and once more they returned to his outpost in seconds, “Unfortunately, the Asgardian fleet is otherwise occupied.”
Nick frowned, he knew what by but wasn't supposed to so he asked the obvious, “By what? You guys were rather powerful ten thousand years ago. Given that span of time you should be many times more powerful technologically than you were. Even if your physical forms seemed to have deteriorated drastically.”
Halldor seemed to be considering his answer for a long moment before he spoke, “We are fighting something similar to yourself. An implacable ever adapting machine enemy.”
Nick blinked, “I highly doubt whatever you are fighting is a human changed into something else. Tell me about these machines. Maybe I can help? I have all of the knowledge of the Ancients to draw on.”
Halldor stared at Nick for a time before Nick was blinded by a flash of white light and the same musical tones. He found himself back in his outpost looking through one of the observation windows at the Asgardian ship. It wasn't like any in his memories, but the design aesthetics were familiar. As he watched, the ship vanished into hyperspace.
“Well fine. Be that way.”
He expected the Asgardians would contact him when they made a decision. Until then, there was a reason he'd returned to his outpost. He turned away from the window and walked through a series of hallways until he got to the single most important room in the building. It was filled with high tech machinery and systems all dedicated to a single purpose, growing Potentia, or ZPM's. The single greatest power source the Ancients ever created. Three of them were enough to power Atlantic for ten thousand years with its shields active and holding back the weight of the ocean crushing down on it.
The main drawback of the Potentia was that they were literally grown and it was a very demanding and precise process. A single flaw in any section of the crystal lattice could cause a catastrophic failure that could wipe out an entire solar system, let alone a planet.
Naturally, he chose to be elsewhere when the one he'd had growing was finished. That was the most dangerous moment in their construction process and he didn't want to be anywhere near it. Yes, he had every single micron of the crystals making it up examined atom by atom to make sure they were perfect. Then he had the same exam performed another ninety-nine times. Even then he wanted to be nowhere near them when their internal pocket of subspace-time was formed.
He stood in the doorway looking at the single one he'd managed to grow in the last few months. It sat there looking innocent. It was primarily made of orange colored crystals only about a foot long in a roughly cylindrical shape. The few red crystals were the ones that contained programming for connecting to Ancient systems to power them. Once he stuck it in something and activated it, it would emit a soft orange glow.
With a broad grin, he walked over to the ZPM and gently picked it up. He was surprised at just how little such a powerful item weighed in his hands. He rotated the crystal in his hands looking at it from every direction, “Finally.”
This was the first major step in his plan.
He turned and left the room. The thing about making the ZPM's is that while the facility he'd made it in would work, it was better to make them in a specially designed remote facility where no one was at risk of dying if one failed.
He moved through the outpost to the hanger where a brand new ship was waiting for him. His original shuttle had been melted down for scrap and a brand new ship had been built to replace it. His new ship was a three hundred meter long light corvette. Compared to a ship like the Aurora it was tiny as ships of that class, battleships, were three point five kilometers long.
It was more than enough for his purposes as it sported a shield generator meant to protect a battleship. Nothing the Goa'uld had could crack them as long as he had power. Which...
He walked to the boarding ramp and into the interior of the ship. It was a bit of a walk to get to the power center where a pedestal awaited him with a slot already open. He placed the ZPM in the slot and grinned when it began to gently glow before sinking down out of sight. Power thrummed through the ship as it received a sudden and massive boost. The ship had already been running on an amazingly powerful Naquadah reactor but that had nothing on the ZPM. The Naquadah generator would now be relegated to a backup power source.
He placed a cover over the ZPM and left the room while calling out, “Is everything ready?”
His own voice answered, “Yup. With the ZPM installed the shields are now at full power and can handle the conditions where you're going.”
“Good. You know what to do while I'm gone.”
“Yeah yeah. By the way. Talking to yourself is a sign of insanity.”
He snorted at that, “Shut up.”
He soon arrived on the bridge where a command chair was awaiting him. He hopped into it and mentally tapped into the systems. Holograms came to life as he ran a systems check. Everything was performing at one hundred percent efficiency.
“Open the hanger.”
The large doors to the hanger silently opened to allow him to guide the ship into space. He cleared the hanger then hopped into hyperspace. The ship, already named SS (Spaceship) Explorer, had an intergalactic hyperdrive installed meaning it was powerful enough to cross the vast distances between galaxies in a reasonable amount of time. As in, it would only take him a few hours to travel from where he was now to the Pegasus Galaxy.
Not that he was stupid enough to do that! He was nowhere near ready to deal with the Wraith.
Some day though.
The point was, with the speed of his drive and the power of his power source, it took him less than a minute to arrive at his destination. He was pulling Asgard shenanigans. The system he arrived in was another lifeless one filled with a couple of gas giants and dead rocky planets that couldn't even support bacterial life. None of the planets were what he focused on though.
His sublight engines kicked in and powered his ship to 0.25C or one quarter the speed of light. They could go faster but it wasn't necessary in this case as he was flying directly toward the sun. As he got closer he sent out a burst transmission. A minute later he got a confirmation reply.
Grinning from ear to ear, he flew into the corona of the sun while powering his shields to their maximum. Dabbing on Goa'uld wasn't why he'd installed such powerful shields on his ship. He'd installed them to make sure he would survive, or rather his ship would survive, going through the hell that was the suns outer layers.
He slowed as he approached his final destination, a massive Lantean facility located just above the surface of the solar systems main sequence star. The facility, like all Lantean projects, was built to last and had for the past ten thousand years, ever since their return to the Milky Way from Pegasus. It's location was one of a few modern facilities the Lantean's had created before they died out or ascended.
Once he got close a hangar door opened and allowed him to easily fly in. Another reason he'd gone for a relatively small corvette was because it was the biggest ship the facility could accommodate while giving himself a fair amount of cargo space for his return trip with what he was here to collect.
After landing, and double checking the systems of the station after connecting to it directly, he stepped off of his ship and walked through the main door into the facility. With the blueprints of the facility in his memory it was easy enough for him to walk through it to the storage area. He opened the door and paused to look inside of a large warehouse area. His lips slowly curled into a wicked grin as he looked over the tens, no hundreds of thousands of cases containing ZPM's.
The facility was a proper ZPM production facility designed at the height of the war against the Wraith. A single facility could produce one ZPM per week. That might sound slow, but given the complexity and danger in the production process, it was as fast as it could go while still remaining relatively safe. Hence why the facility was hidden on the surface of a star in a dead solar system that no one would want to visit.
Even better, being so close to the sun allowed for the collection of energy on a massive scale that was then used for energy to matter conversion to provide the necessary materials for building the ZPM's. In short, as long as the sun burned the factory could produce ZPM's non-stop. It had done so for the past ten thousand years at a rate of one ZPM per week. That was over half a million of them just sitting there waiting for someone to use them.
That was where he came in.
Of course, there was no way in hell he was prepared to use half a million ZPM's. At best he had current uses for five of them. Two more for his Corvette and three for his outpost. Long term though? Well, he had enough here that the fleet he planned to build could have a trifecta of ZPM's in each ship and still have extras in case something, somewhere, somehow managed to actually drain the power from one.
Not that power generation would have ever been an issue for him, this was merely convenience. The Lantean's had all kinds of power generation technology he could use for his purposes so it wasn't like the ZPM's were his only option. But why let them go to waste?
Nanomachines flooded out from his feet and collected five of the cases sitting in the warehouse, each case held a single ZPM in a secure manner. Not that dropping them would cause them any harm. Hell, a Jaffa could beat the hell out of one with a sledge hammer for hours and not even scratch it. Once properly built it would take something actually powerful to crack a ZPM and cause it to detonate.
He turned and walked out of the warehouse area while remotely commanding the drones that were in charge of delivering the ZPM's from the growth chambers to the warehouse to collect more and load the storage bay of his corvette completely. Five of the ZPM containers followed him on a river of his nanomachines.
As he walked, remote drones flowed past him to the warehouse and then back toward the hanger while carrying a case. They moved a lot faster than he did and managed to make three trips to the hanger before he arrived.
Upon reentering his ship, he went back to the power chamber and added two of the ZPM's to the one that was already installed in the pedestal. He smirked when they began to glow. He now, officially, had the most powerful ship in the Milky Way Galaxy. Hell, most powerful in this galaxy and the Ida galaxy where the Asgard were.
He made his way to the command chair and sat down to relax. Even with the speed the drones were working at, it would take a while to load his cargo bay to the brim with ZPM's. Instead of wasting time just sitting there, he pulled up the chairs design systems and got to work designing ground vehicles and heavy artillery for his Jaffa to use. The Goa'uld weren't going to know what hit them.
-----Line Break-----
Nick blinked as his view changed from his throne room where he'd been silently using his ability to wirelessly network with anything to run his computers secretly. He looked around at the familiar aesthetics of an Asgard ship and sighed, “You know, just grabbing me off of my throne in full view of my Jaffa is going to cause me some trouble.”
He turned to find an Asgard standing at a control console. It might sound racist, but he hadn't spent enough time around Asgardian's to tell them apart. So, rather than possibly embarrass himself by calling the Asgard by the wrong name, so he remained silent.
“I am Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard fleet. Commander Halldor relayed his conversation with you to the Council. They sent me to see if your offer is genuine and if you can help us.”
Nick nodded. That explained the lack of force fields holding him prisoner, “I'd be glad to. Tell me about your problem.”
Thor moved a stone on his console and pulled up the information the Asgard had on the Replicators, “The threat we face is called the Replicators. A machine race that does little more than search for and consume superior technology to improve themselves. I will give you all the data we have on them.”
“If you give me permission, I can connect directly to your systems and download the information.”
Thor's dark eyes studied Nick for a moment before he gave a minute nod, “You may.”
Nick had no doubt Thor would be watching closely so he stuck with just the files on the Replicators. It was enlightening. While the Lantean's had not designed the Replicator's directly, the technology was clearly based on their research into nanites. It only took him a moment, thanks to foreknowledge, to find the information he needed in his mind.
“Thor, may I have permission to use your energy to matter converter?”
Thor studied Nick while asking, “For what purpose?”
“To build a device that will allow you to take out all the Replicators within the Ida galaxy at once.”
Thor looked disbelieving, something Nick could understand. However, it seemed that he was willing to take the risk for a chance to save his people, “I will be observing.”
Nick quickly connected to the system and began his work, “Is Ida properly seeded with Stargates?”
“It is.”
Nick nodded, that made things easier. He knew the energy wave he needed to propagate to sever all communication between Replicator blocks. He also knew how to pull of the trick of having one gate dial out to tall gates simultaneously. Now he was building a device that would combine both bits of knowledge into a single piece of technology.
He began to build it piece by piece, “While I do this, scan behind the planets moon to find my ship. In its cargo bay is a number of containers, beam one...” One of the ZPM boxes appeared, “... over please. Thank you.”
While he continued to build the device, he knelt down and opened the box. Thor's eyes noticably widened as his scanners finally got a read on what was inside of the box, “A Potentia?” He looked at the scan of the cargo hold he took, “Does every box in your cargo hold contain a Potentia?”
Nick nodded, “They do.”
“How? You have not had nearly enough time to produce thousands of the devices in the short time you've been active.”
Nick nodded, “You're one hundred percent correct. However, I didn't produce these. The Lantean's did. When they first came back to the Milky Way from Pegasus they were still on something of a military footing. So, they built a single Potentia factory in a hidden area. It has sat there for the last ten thousand years producing one Potentia every one hundred and sixty-eight hours.”
If he thought Thor was shocked before, it was nothing compared to now. Nick grinned, “If you'd like, you're welcome to take a dozen.”
Instantly twelve of the boxes containing Potentia appeared in a neat stack nearby. Nick chuckled but didn't complain. Everything he knew about the Asgard, both from the series and the information in the repository made him like them. Giving them a handful of Potentia was nothing in his eyes. By the time he could possibly run out of his current stock, he would likely have thousands or tens of thousands more.
Not to mention he could always build more production facilities to ramp up production to whatever scale he wanted.
In less than twenty minutes the device Nick had designed was finished being constructed. He opened a specific section of it and gently installed the Potentia. Once it was sealed inside he smiled and looked at Thor, “It's simple to use. Set it in front of a Stargate and press this button.” He pointed to an unnecessarily large red button with a clear cover protecting it, “Once you do the device will connect to the gate and then dial out to every other Stargate in the Ida galaxy. From there it will send out an energy wave that will sever the connections between Replicator blocks rendering them useless.”
Thor looked from the device to Nick, then back to the device. He then moved a stone and Nick found himself back in his throne room surrounded by anxious looking Jaffa. The moment they spotted him there were shouts and questions. Ro'ak shoved his way through the group while shouting for them to be silent. By the time he stood in front of Nick the other Jaffa had silenced themselves so he could ask, “My Lord, are you alright?! What happened?”
Nick sighed and gestured for the Jaffa to move out of his way. He quickly had a clear path to this throne. He shifted his voice into the Goa'uld 'god voice' to answer, “The Asgard came by and had some questions for me. Fear not, we only spoke. Our treaties with them prevent them from doing any more.”
Ro'ak asked the obvious, “What did they want from you, My Lord?”
Nick sat and got comfortable, “They noticed the changes I have been making and wished to know my intentions.” Nick grinned broadly, “They did not say it, but I think they approved.”
All lies, of course, but what else was he going to tell them?!
“Forget the Asgard. It is time for the next step in my plan to become the ruler of all. Jaffa! Head out into the city and gather your fellow Jaffa and the slaves, I have an announcement to make!”
It was time to free the slaves and then begin his conquest of the Goa'uld.
-----Line Break-----
Thor stood before the Council having just explained his encounter with Nick in the Milky Way. Normally he would be sitting on the council with the others, but circumstances being what they were he was reporting to them in his stead as the Supreme Commander.
Penegal was the one to address him, “Will the device do as this human-form Replicator has claimed?”
Thor faced his fellow Asgardian, “I do not believe that he should be designated as a Replicator. Though he shares many similarities, it cannot be denied that he is a living and thinking individual rather than a mindless hive. He also does not display any of the expected traits of a Replicator such as devouring all available resources in order to replicate. There is also what he has done after taking over the identity of the Goa'uld Pelops to consider.”
Penegal nodded and conceded the point, “Very well. Will the device the being disguised as the Goa'uld Pelops do as he claimed?”
Thor nodded, “According to every test we've run on the device, it will.”
The councilors exchanged glances. This time it was the High Archon who spoke, “We believe it to be worth the risk to use. You will take the device to a dead system, place a Stargate, and activate the device. If all goes well, we shall finally be free of the Replicator threat. If it does not, we shall only suffer the loss of a dead system, at worse.”
Thor gave a small nod, “As the Council commands.”
He vanished in a flash of musical white light. Minutes later he was setting the device down in front of a freshly installed Stargate on a dead rocky planet. It was easy enough to project a livable environment for the short time he needed to be outside of his ship.
With everything set, Thor did as Nick had instructed. He flipped open the clear box protecting the switch and pushed the big red button. There was a soft hum from the machine followed by the distinct sound and sight of a Stargate activating. A short moment later there was a burst of scintillating energy that was emitted from the device and traveled into the Stargate.
A few moments later, the gate closed. Thor returned to his ship with the device and the Stargate in time to receive an incoming transmission, “This is Hermiod. The replicators are dispersing. The ships they controlled have lost power and begun drifting listlessly.”
Thor moved a stone on his console and connected directly to the High Council, “Mission accomplished. The Replicator threat appears to be neutralized.”
-----Line Break-----
AN
8.8k words, a little short but this was a good spot to stop!
Also, yes, I know. This isn't what I'm supposed to be working on. Sorry, not sorry! This demanded to be written.
For those not aware, it is an established fact, stated by Thor himself, that the Asgard do, in fact, track all hyperspace activity in the Milky Way. Season 6, Episode 12. Granted, I'm going by memory, and I'm pretty sure that was the episode since it was after the Prometheus was stolen. Don't lynch me if I'm wrong.
So, I had to have them investigate the familiar signature, ya know?
Besides. This takes care of a very annoying problem very early on. He hasn't completely saved the Asgard, though. They're still suffering from their genetic degeneration. It just means he, and others will never have to deal with the Replicators now.
We also see Nick still working toward taking over the Galaxy so he can rule as a benevolent dictator. That'll be fun!
I've gotten this out of my system now so I should be back on track to follow the voted for chapter.
Love you guys!