The Will of the Sun God

[Atlantis Exsilio]

"Longer, actually. There was a long period of genetic tinkering before they went to outright cloning," Sheppard said. "It's just that around ten thousand years ago they started to realized they'd fucked up the entire process to the point that they still haven't managed to reverse the damage, although that's partly because of some war-related infrastructure damage. I don't know the exact details, because they really hate talking about it. They could do the machine thing if they wanted to, but there's all sorts of weird philosophical objections about continuity of consciousness and whether you're really the same person if you're in a mechanical rather identical biological body. It's a bit silly if you ask me, since they're already storing backups for emergencies and bouncing from clone to clone as the old ones fall apart because of bad planning, but it's their lives."

"Besides," Vala said, "even metal bodies can be killed if you have the right technology, so why not stick with ones that can still enjoy all the pleasures of the flesh?"

"Not that they didn't fuck that up, too," Sheppard said. He looked to Viera and said with a small smile, "I take it you're some sort of expert on advanced alien technology brought here to help plunder the city's scientific riches?"

[Lord Atum]

"I resent that," Sia said, "we're hardly plundering. We are engaged in techno-archaeology. Much like your asgard friends were presumably here for. Though Viera here has been my aide long before I came here; her fellows however, are here for technical expertise. And of course, archaeology which is the specialisation of most of them."

[Kajal]

Viera chuckled. "To be accurate, I'm more of an advanced alien expert on technology. My fellows and I are somewhat removed from our homeworld by a combination of unfortunate decisions and a large helping of benevolent intervention, and this place is certainly far more comfortable than I personally expected..."

"There is much here, of course, that is itself quite common throughout the universe; the most interesting element of our work is how each civilization has implemented such things." Viera left off the otherwise normally implied '...for us to sell.' "I've found that the builders of this city developed the majority of their technology in a quite peculiar way... Deciphering the intent behind the design of their devices, even when the mechanics are known, has been quite challenging."

Smirking at Vala, there was a hint of teasing in her voice. "Oh, there are of course many pleasures that one can enjoy, organic or artificial, if one can afford them..."

[Atlantis Exsilio]

"Afford?" Vala said. "Why pay for something when there's so many other ways to have a good time or otherwise get what you want?"

"I've found that the key to understanding Ancient technology is to remember that they could never leave well enough alone," Sheppard said. "Sometimes it seems like every single one of them had the urge to play mad scientist and tinker with everything from food to weapons. Oh, sure, some of their most important technologies have been stable for millions of years - the stargate, transporters, food processors, drones, hyperdrives, the sort of stuff that you can't live without - but for everything else they always thought they could do it better. Why use a food cornucopia when you can bioengineer trees that grow steaks? Who would want a generic flying belt when you could create a suit with gigantic bird wings? Even during the Wraith war half the population was trying to create wonder-weapons instead of creating incrementally-improved and standardized designs. Now think of that kind of attitude as applied to urban renewal in a city five million years old. It's a miracle anything works right."

"On a practical level," Vala interjected, "what it means is that even the most innocuous-looking trinkets can turn out to hold the key to unimaginable wealth and power. The trick is finding out which things are like that, and which just turn your skin purple."

"I would have thought the trick was removing them without being noticed," Sheppard said.

"Hardly. That's child's play compared to safely deciphering Ancient technology."

[Lord Atum]

Salad'ac looked up from a salad, along the table to glower at Vala, "I am sure," he said, "I should take that as some kind of an affront. Be quite assured that we know that you are something of a kleptomaniac," the jaffa said, "Lord Sia, in his amity and wisdom has chosen to overlook it."

"I am sure Lady Vala did not mean to belittle your efficiency," Teyla said, from opposite the Jaffa commander, the table was seated male-female along its length, with Sia and Sheppard at the middle, and freakish-alternate-universe-teyla-with-a-Zat on one side of Sheppard, a little disquietingly, perhaps.

"Indeed," Sina said, "it merely happens that dealing safe with some of our more eccentric discoveries here is quite a challenge in itself."

Salad'ac humphed his disdain, and returned to his food.

"In any case, our Asgard friends," Sia said looking at his brother as he sat down at a hastily added seat at the end (or head?) of the table.

"Yes?" he asked.

"We should question them further it is likely that they too oppose the wraith. And if this was merely an unfortunate incident then we may be able to make allies of them."

"Or they simply thought us weak and so sent a small expedition," Sanan said, "and even now a grander one is being planned."

__ __ __

Allis ran through the woods, persued by a wraith dart. Fire exploded on either side of her.

Wraithbringer, that was one word the natives of Pegasus used for Runners. And there was a simple reason. While the Wraith engaged in their sport they often hunted and slew humans as incidental en passant victims. They did so now.

There had to be some compansations for this entirely false hunt. The few wraith brave enough to participate were devotees of the cultural sport, so mortified by its interruption that they were prepared to risk the might of the Lanteans falling upon them.

And the woman running ahead of them; why, she was braver still. She firmly believed the "Ancestors" who had created her people in their war with the Wraith, enders of life, were crueller and more decadant than she could imagine. Humanity was to either group, nothing more than a game. But the Ancestors had created humans to deny the mutual annihilation that the Stars had granted them in the form of the Wraith.

For that betrayal they would be punished.

If they showed up.

Running from the wraith behind her, shooting over her head, she pitied those evil demons.

Their fate would be worse even than this.

[Lord Atum]

Planet Vorn, Planetary Database Entry #659-1157/13

The chamber was huge. It was a natural cavern of remarkable beauty, scintillating crystals reflected the lights inside From a human perspective, however, its beauty was marred by the bulk of Wraith machinery inside. Dozens of drones carrying heavy weapons surrounded the stargate as it activated. A force-field curtain shimmered across it and then de-activated as a signal authenticated its way into the systems in the planning center.

A pair more drones stepped out of the stargate, accompanied by one of their leaders, a tall figure in black leather, stepped out of the puddle and it shut down behind them. The drones seamlessly joining the others as their leader walked to one of various tables in the foom, taking out a sizeable data storage device and interfacing it with a computer unit.

The room was a strategic planning center, used during the two major wars the Wraith had fought, and it was now being used for a third.

The data device contained information on surveys of the Primary Assault Spur, the main advance route used in the First War against the Lanteans in the run-up to the seige.

The strategic planners weren’t Primaries, nor necessarily leaders, they were instead, professionals, scientists and logisticians who were emissaries of their hives whose role was to coordinate actions. They did not hibernate, and normally spent their time occasionally sending messages between one hive and another regarding hunting down ‘Vagrants.’ scientific research, various other races, and other matters.

Oddly, for such a serious matter, one would be surprised by the number of children present, male and female. It was considered quite important that future queens and other promising offspring had a good idea how the species’ large-scale efforts were coordinated, so they spent several months working with those planners who weren’t doing field work.

The newcomer was accosted by a young boy of about fifteen, “What’s all this?” he asked, and the newcomer looked down at him.

“It is the initial food support survey for an attack on Lantea,” he said, “as you know, we have to be careful not to over-graze an area. I am determining where we will need support-ships to bring sufficient numbers of ships to bear. Of course, at the moment, our estimates of enemy ship numbers are rather shaky, ranging between ten and fifteen capital ships.”

“I see, so you really need to work out how many ships we can assemble?”

“Yes, thankfully, we have darts, which mean that this is something of a secondary consideration, remember.”

__ __ __

Atlantis

“I think,” Sia said, “it would be wise if we contacted your own Asgard about this. They might be able to tell us a little more, and doubtless any negotiations would be easier with cousins around,” Sia said. Then he snapped his fingers, “Also, I almost forgot, while you are here, can I ask you for a small favour? We re-activated the derelict defensive satellite, but I’m not sure it’s in the most useful position at the moment.”

[Atlantis Exsilio]

Atlantis

"Sure, no problem," Sheppard said. "It shouldn't take more than an hour or two, assuming there's no damage to the docking system. Those satellites are designed for easy towing. If I were you, I'd pay attention to replacing all the shielding systems - if it's anything like the one I remember, its defenses are all shot and while the main gun works great, as it is it's got a serious glass jaw."

He relayed a series of orders to his ship, along with a request for an Asgard to come and chat with his apparently long-long relatives. Under the circumstances, it seemed as though perhaps Hermiod, not the most diplomatic of persons at the best of times, would be a poor choice of emissary. Instead, Baldur was retrieved from computer storage and given a clone body. Under normal circumstances, the former Asgard speaker-to-lesser-beings would have been left where he was until the Asgard genetic problem was solved - each active Asgard required regular treatment by Ancient medical devices and, more embarrassingly, Nox healing technology to remain physically well - but as a general rule everyone liked Baldur and as such his presence seemed worth the effort. Soon enough, the defense satellite was cruising through space and the Asgard was transiting the stargate.

Asuras

Retrieving runners was a fairly simple thing to do; the main problem was catching one before he or she could move through the gate again while still being careful to avoid ambush. That turned out to be less difficult than it could have been. The gate was blocked simply by maintaining a wormhole, and the rescue ship emerged from hyperspace at a random position at distance where it could spot any Wraith ship. Any Wraith hunters present could be easily killed by troopers or precision drone fire, and if there were ships they could be either avoided or destroyed. There had been a few hiccups at first, such as when the stymied hunting party had taken out their anger on a nearby village, but now it was policy to drop a (new and improved) hammer system while retrieving the runner. This particular runner was no different than normal.

Running tended to be a rather unhealthy experience, and so there was a thorough medical exam, of course. After that Allis was taken to a small, private room for a good meal and an interview. The questions were straightforward enough, albeit couched in the gentlest manner possible: how long had she been captive, what was her homeworld, how many planets had she passed through, things of that nature. In part it was to establish the viability of returning her home; it was also the result of considerable paranoia. More than one city, station, or ship had fallen because of willing or mind-broken traitors during the last Wraith war, after all. Fortunately for Allis, Ancient neural trawl technology was completely non-invasive, unlike the spiked ball Atum stuck in peoples' brain or the hand-in-head method favored by Replicators, or even the memory recall devices of the Tok'ra. In fact, this basic version was barely the size of a grain of rice, and had been planted inside her skull via transporter during the exam. And so, while she answered - or really, just heard the questions - a computing system of unimaginable power was monitoring her thoughts and recalled memories, conscious and otherwise. Granted, it wasn't as thorough as a full-scale mind probe, but she was a guest, after all...

[Lord Atum]

Allis carefully told the truth. She had been captured – upon a time that was true – and released by the Wraith even though she had no particularly relevant skills. She had been coached to stick as close to the truth (Lanteans were known to possess mental powers in some cases a match for a queen after all) as possible and focus on everything that she disliked about the wraith when questioned about them. The signs of being fed upon were not present in her system, though some followers were addicted to the process, she herself was not. This wasn’t quite good enough, of course, to disguise transparent lies about how long she had been a wraith captive (weeks instead of years) but matters such as her homeworld she spoke of directly and truthfully. She hoped to return there after all, so that she could complete her mission.

Picking holes in her story would be easy enough, and picking up on her real mission no more difficult if those holes were questioned.

The newly installed hammer, at around that time, began to alarm, as the planet she had been ‘rescued’ from detected wraith ships approaching at incredible, for Wraith, speed, though not unprecedented. The limiting factor on their speed was not power output, but the durability of their armour in protecting them from hyperspace radiations. Unmanned suicide ships in the war had been much faster than manned ones, and these were approaching at such a speed, red-lining their drives.

Tearing their way from hyperspace at a sprint speed of fifty kilolights they shot into orbit of the near-deserted planet the ships were widely spread, in anticipation of fighting Lantean warships, the optimal tactic was to remain as far as possible and allow one’s self to commence counter-drone fire. That wasn’t as easily done as said, though, drones were far faster than anything the wraith fielded, though their dart pilots (launched immediately) trained extensively to intercept missiles launched from capital ships.

The wraith had planned for this – if Allis, who knew nothing of the groups of ships sent to the various locations she was supposed to visit – if they tried to kill their spy, then she would be backed up. If they actually boarded a Lantean ship, all the better, a spy was not nearly as useful as a captive. If the ship were still in orbit, they would open fire immediately, if not, then their weapons would be focused for a barrage sufficient to bury this planet’s stargate, to smoke out any cloaked gate-ships.

Should no enemy present itself, they would descend to the planet in order to allow the ships to renew themselves, and hopefully prevent the enemy dropping out of hyperspace with a lock on their location.

__ __ __

Atlantis

The satellite was actually quite a way to fully operational status. Not only had the Atumites installed a pair of huge, drum-like naquadah generators in the device, but they had repaired its weapons systems and even its shields. The sub-space tap that originally powered it, taking up a vast volume of its space, however, remained offline despite their best efforts. It simply wasn't practical to do the necessary work when it was a fifteen hour journey away.

Balder meanwhile, had a strange experience of various jaffa looking at him and sniggering. Most had never truly believed the propaganda that asgard were four foot high grey gnomes, seeing them more as towering manly figures of brawn and hammering both lusty and wrothful.

Salad'ac barked out an order to shut up and escorted Baldur to one of the lesser conference rooms, where, under the watchful eyes of three guards and Sia, one of the asgard captives, their leader it seemed, sat.

He rose and looked at his opposite, virtually identical though the native one wore a few technological interface cybernetics. He began to speak in the high-speed language of the Vanir, slightly different from mainstream asgard. "How... interesting. Decided to repatriate us, have they?"

[Atlantis Exsilio]

Atlantis

There was something slightly... off about the Vanir that made Baldur pause. It was not the implants, although they were clearly outdated; the Asgard had not used such primitive man-machine interfaces in thousands of years. No, there seemed to be something almost familiar about them, calling up some long-unused memory which lurked just out of reach of even his incredibly powerful mind.

"Indeed," Baldur said. "You should count yourselves as fortunate that we currently have an understanding with Atum's government. Your fate would likely have been quite unpleasant otherwise, as they do not take kindly to being attacked. I am Baldur, representing the Alliance of Heliopolis. I would request that you identify yourselves and whom you are affiliated with, and inform me why you have come here."

Asuras

Perhaps in the previous war Allis might have managed to escape unnoticed. Back then the Lanteans had not been so paranoid, nor so traumatized, at least until well after spied ceased to be much use. Nor, for that matter, had they been exposed to the (bad, some would say) influence of the Tau'ri, who took spycraft to a level that both Lanteans and Wraith would probably find excessive and inefficient. But sadly for her, all of that was in the past, and so when the slightest wavers and tell-tale signs showed up on the monitors, the technicians started to sift through memories a bit more deeply and soon found some surface contradictions that indicated either lies or conditioning. That being the case, the guards...

Did nothing. Allis was allowed free reign of the city, or at least the civilian areas of a small part of the city, and shown to a guest room that was buy any standard luxurious.

Then, in her sleep, she was beamed away to a lab, kept unconscious once she arrived. If her detection was unfortunate for her, the timing was more in her favor. Interrogation trawls of the old war could be unpleasant for the subject. Now, with Asgard mind-transfer technology, it was a simple matter to copy her complete mind-state into a separate computer system created for just this purpose. Even as that was put into emulation and slowly picked apart memory by memory and thought by thought by the best Lantean and Asgard mental technicians and Tau'ri intelligence experts, Allis herself was returned to her bed only minutes after being remove. It was, all things considered, a remarkably civilized way of getting information. Certainly it was better than Atumite methods, which probably involved spikes somehow.

Elsewhere

It didn't take long for a ship to arrive over the besieged planet; as the hammer system was deployed, it had become obvious that ships would need to be stationed around the galaxy to have good response times. Most were smaller frigates, a match for a few cruisers and speedy enough to escape most anything it couldn't outgun; given that this was an obvious spot for retaliation within a few days, however, the Wraith were unfortunate enough to find the battleship Tria barreling out of hyperspace half a light-second from the planet. They'd emerged at a somewhat random spot in order to avoid possible ambush and spotted the Wraith without too much trouble.

The first volley as they approached were drones; while the range was a bit extreme for them, shaking up the Wraith was more the objective than scoring serious hits. Perhaps more dangerous was the volley of missiles coming close behind them. Anticipating the dart swarms, each was loaded with four submunitions instead of a single anti-shipping warhead; as the darts closed they split apart, arranged themselves optimally to disrupt the darts' defensive formation, and detonated. They were small warheads... as naquadah-enhanced fusion devices went, which was to say, the sort of three-digit megatonnage that no one wanted going off in their face. Right behind that were more drones.

And meanwhile, just in case the Wraith weren't in sufficient pain, the ZPM-boosted heavy Asgard ion cannons that had replaced the original guns started spitting blue bolts of death.