Good for you. I'm team Purge everything with Stellar Fusion and use a Nova Bomb on what remains. Let us agree to disagree.
Crossover Move, Countermove (Stargate SG-1/Alien(s) AU)
- Thread starter bullethead
- Start date
KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
tell that to your Steller fusion and your nova bomb and I will.
CurrentPresent 8
Currentpresent 8
Capitol Building,
Fullhon, Tollan
October 1997
Colonel Jack O’Neill looked out the window at the capitol city of the Tollan, and all he could think was Nice to visit, wouldn’t want to live here.
That wasn’t a knock on the architecture, which was heavily Roman inspired with unexpected Central American flairs in the older structures, and heavily futuristic in the more modern structures. It was just that from every damn window he looked out of, there was nothing but urban sprawl as far as the eye could see. Maybe he was just old fashioned, maybe it was just the fact that appreciated some good old fashioned nature, but it was just too much for him.
He turned away from the window and returned to the buffet table, which was well stocked with food and drinks, all of it foreign but somewhat familiar. Whatever flaws the Tollan had with their urban planning, they were great at making an appealing buffet. As he refilled his cup with a fruit punch that had a bit of spicy aftertaste, one of the Tollan government members approached him.
Covering his lack of memory of the middle aged blonde woman’s name – Did I even get her name? – with a sip of his drink, O’Neill gave her a friendly smile.
“Councilor Aellyce,” the woman introduced herself. “Councilor of the Defense Ministry.”
“Nice to meet you. Colonel Jack O’Neill,” he said, putting his drink aside and offering her his hand to shake.
She blinked at the gesture, then accepted the shake. “Your name is quite memorable, so no reintroduction was necessary. But it was appreciated.”
“Yes, well, I was taught that never hurts to be polite,” O’Neill replied, grabbing his drink and holding up the cup up. “Like for example, you guys know how to make a great buffet spread. Great drinks too.”
The corners of Aellyce’s mouth pulled up. “I’ll be sure to pass your compliments on to the caterers and chefs.” Her expression became more serious. “I would like your opinion on whether or not your government would agree to our request to embed some of our officers in your SG teams.”
Well, can’t say she’s not qualified for the role, O’Neill thought as he covered a grimace with another sip of his drink.
“This is obviously above my pay grade,” he said, watching her go through the entire process of trying to parse the expression and realizing what it meant. “But I don’t think General Hammond would have an issue with that, as long they respect the chain of command.” He paused, then glanced over to where Joseph Faxon was talking to other members of the Tollan government. “Even if the Joint Chiefs don’t go for your people in every team, they might go for one on SG-1, given all the weird stuff we’ve run into over the past few missions.”
Aellyce nodded and after a little more small talk, moved on. O’Neill was grateful – he hated playing the social game, being a bit too low key and casual for that kind of thing. Hanging out with friends and family over a game of football was more his speed.
Luckily, Teal’c, sporting a gray suit due to his unusual legal status, was on his way back to the buffet, so he was spared any threat of another Tollan talking to him immediately. Teal’c grabbed himself some more punch and an assortment of appetizers that O’Neill personally didn’t think went well together, but maybe appealed more to the Jaffa palette. Or maybe the Chulak palette, O’Neill corrected himself.
“What do you think of the spread?” he asked.
One thing that fascinated the colonel was the fact that you could see aliens trying to understand what Earth humans were saying so obviously. Maybe it was because he was used to having Daniel and Carter on hand to translate things, but he didn’t feel as thrown for a loop when aliens spouted odd sayings at him.
“The food is quite good, O’Neill. I have not had anything of this quality outside of the court of Apophis.” The former First Prime had told the colonel about the time Apophis had invited him and Bra’tac to dine with him after a victory over Cronus in the week or so after their latest trip to Chulak, so it was high praise of the cuisine.
“Yeah, I wish we could get stuff this good all the time in the mess.” O’Neill paused, then added, “Not that the mess hall is particularly bad, but they’re more quantity over quality. Still better than MREs.”
“Field rations quite often leave much to be desired,” Teal’c said in agreement.
The colonel was going to offer another quip, but he spotted another Tollan approaching them, and quickly refiled his drink to fortify himself.
“Councilor Lero, of the Tollan Intelligence Services,” a short, unassuming tanned man with salt-and-pepper hair introduced himself. He nodded politely when the two members of SG-1 introduced himself, then bluntly asked O’Neill, “Colonel, how exactly is the Curia supposed to trust you when you can’t keep your own intelligence services in line?”
O’Neill looked at over at Teal’c as he sipped his drink, and then shrugged. “I guess it’s a good thing we’ve got you guys around to help us.”
Lero’s attitude shifted right then and there, reminding O’Neill exactly why he hated working with spooks from the various alphabet soup agencies. “Apologies, Colonel. We do what we have to get inside the heads of our friends and foes.”
“See, it’s that mind game stuff that gets you guys a bad reputation. Well, that and whenever you start playing games and get people killed.” O’Neill felt comfortable mouthing off to the man because he suspected that was what he wanted to hear. Plus, if they had to get Earth’s shit together, having the help of more super advanced aliens – even if they were humans – was probably a good thing.
“Perhaps on your world, but on Tollan, things developed a bit more sensibly,” the Tollan replied. “Although I admit, there were times when some people in positions like mine exceeded their remit. But we designed our systems a bit more thoughtfully, so it was easier to deal with.”
“Well, it’s a shame we didn’t have you guys around at the Constitutional Convention,” the colonel replied. “Probably would’ve saved us a lot of trouble over the years.”
Lero chuckled at that. “Perhaps we’ll be lucky to be around for a second one.”
As he walked away, O’Neill had the sneaking suspicion that he’d gotten a hint at some pastfuture knowledge that he wasn’t supposed to have… yet.
The White House,
Washington D.C.
October 1997
Senator Robert Kinsey, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, nodded, smiled, and shook hands with his various Congressional colleagues as they filed into a briefing room in the White House. He had no idea what this meeting, which included the major players of both parties and both parts of Congress, was about, just that it had delayed his personal briefing on what “Area 52” was. Apparently, the president had decided it was better to brief them all on Area 52, which required rushing some members through the clearance process and getting them to understand security classifications.
Personally, it made Kinsey suspicious about the program. Back during the Cold War, he could understand why the military spent so much damn money. Anyone who saw Soviet atrocities had reason to do anything and everything possible to prevent that happening here at home. It did mean that some wild and bad ideas were taken far more seriously than they should have, but it was better than the alternative.
Now? After the Soviet empire collapsed? Kinsey couldn’t see why the military kept trying to get new things authorized. Who needed a brand new design of fighter that wasn’t cheaper to make and would require who knows how many billions of dollars tossed in a hole before it even got flying? Just make more of the existing planes, with some cheaper updates, of course. And so on with each and every one of the services.
He might approve a program if some or all of the manufacturing was in his home state, but no, the fly-over states weren’t so lucky, and his state in particular. Bringing jobs to a state was a good way to earn votes, and since Kinsey was looking down the line to a presidential run, that would be a huge boon to his reputation. But since that wasn’t happening, he really had no reason toss more money at the intelligence agencies to play their cloak and dagger games overseas, which were generally cheaper and had a better pay off.
He paused when the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs entered, which underscored how serious this briefing was. He waited his turn to shake hands, then moved to his seat when the president came in. The Secret Service closed the doors and the briefing began with little fanfare.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the president began, “we’re here to discuss the most monumental event in human history.”
What Kinsey had thought to be the biggest crock of hyperbole quickly spun into a borderline insane tale of ancient alien empires and time travel. It got to the point that one of the members of the House asked, “Just to be clear – we have not been conspiring with aliens until this point, but we will now be conspiring with aliens to fight other aliens.”
“To our knowledge, that is true,” the Secretary of Defense replied. “We know of at least one alien that has remained on Earth since the time of the Egyptians running small cults, as well as various alien artifacts that may or may not have influenced people over the millennia.”
“Are we planning to do anything about this alien?” Kinsey asked, still struggling to wrap his head around the whole bundle of insanity.
“He is currently under investigation by the ATF, and will be dealt with by Stargate Command when they raid the compound,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs informed them.
Before the conversation could get further out of control, the Republican whip interjected with, “How about you tell us about these Go-uld we’ve apparently gotten ourselves into a war with.”
“Of course,” the Chairman said. “The Goa’uld are currently broken down into two camps. The first camp is the System Lords, who’re currently dealing with a contested succession between Apophis, the Goa’uld who kidnapped and killed one of our people, and Heru’ur, the son of Ra, who our first recon team killed. Apophis is currently organizing an attack on Earth, which we’re working with offworld allies to disrupt.”
“And that means?” the Whip asked.
“Ideally, we’re looking to capture the ship and a high value intelligence asset for a long term subversion operation,” the Chairman informed them. “Worst case, we can guarantee a mission kill by delivering a nuclear bomb aboard the ship.”
The Congress men and women around the table nodded their heads in approval. Having an alien warship would definitely secure American dominance, and certainly would have given them an appreciable technological lead over the other nations, if it weren’t for the even more advanced technology provided by future America. So the risks were definitely worth the payoff, not even factoring in the future defense of the planet.
“The other faction is controlled by a Goa’uld named Sokar, who has styled himself after the Devil, and possess a greater industrial base than the rest of the Goa’uld combined. He has fully industrialized homeworld, Delmak, and five other worlds in the core of his industrialized to a mid-1800s level.” The Chairman’s pause after this fact did not seem to be related to the severity of this situation, which made Kinsey suspicious that he was holding something back. “The good news is that if Sokar wanted to conquer Earth the hard way, he’s got to conquer his way through System Lord territory, and that’d leave him with huge flanks to defend. The bad news is that if he wanted to do it the easy way, he could melt his way through our current stargate defenses and send in an army, or just send in a ship to blast us from orbit.”
“So we have no means of defense right now?” One of the Democrats from the House asked.
“We in fact have one. It’s a device that can make the entire planet invisible and intangible,” the Secretary of Defense interjected. “The problem is that we can’t power it. It’d require more energy that the US is currently outputting from all of its power plants… combined.”
“So ‘no’?” That was a wry rejoinder from Henry Hayes, a rising star in the Republican party. Also a potential rival to Kinsey, but the senator was well aware that politics made odd bedfellows. Hayes and Kinsey shared a lot of policy positions, especially on spending, so that was one ally he could potentially rely on whenever the president got around to his point.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re here because there’s a way to solve this problem, but involves us all working together to do it.” The president paused, locking eyes with everyone in the room. “And I do mean everyone, not just the people in this room. We’re talking about the biggest industrial effort since World War II.” He turned to the Secretary of Defense. “Show them.”
The Secretary of Defense pulled out a brief case from under the table, then passed out maps of the United States covered in a spider web of lines. As Kinsey looked over his copy of the map, the Secretary explained the plan to build fusion reactors, solid state batteries, and the tooling for both in the flyover states. It didn’t take a genius to see an opportunity to earn votes and solidify the loyalty of the voting bases of those states for their respective party, and Kinsey knew that it might mean his party losing a few states for a lifetime or more… but the payoff was worth it.
Still the game had to be played. “So, what do you want in exchange?”
“First of all, some black project funding for a prototype reactor,” the president replied. “Second, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs hasn’t presented their plan yet.”
The next few minutes were basically the military demanding new toys that would cost money, with the only cost saving idea being making bullet casings out of plastic. Kinsey could stomach that, though, because the plan was to spread out the manufacturing all over the country, so at least it would provide some jobs to his constituents. He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes when one of the Democrats asked about using the proposed stockpiling of weapons to get guns off the street. While Kinsey himself didn’t care for modern guns, his voters did, and besides, half the problem was the fact that the Democrats were too soft on crime.
Actually, now that he thought about it, what if they used the stargate to shove the worst criminals somewhere out of the way…
His thoughts were interrupted by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs expressing aggressive patience with the politician in question. “Ma’am, that would be extremely counterproductive to the secrecy of the Stargate Program and our defensive preparations. First of all, we’re already dealing with paranoid citizens who think the government is actively trying to disarm them. We’d not only be justifying that paranoia, we’d be giving the Goa’uld onworld a massive propaganda boon. Second, doing that would immediately attract attention from foreign intelligence, because it’s so atypical of our behavior. Third, we want weapons that are actually useful to a resistance effort and standardized enough to ensure interoperability. To be blunt, there’s no way to ensure standardization in a timely manner besides filling the stockpiles with refurbished older weapons and new production of the weapons we already use.”
Kinsey had to hide a smile. Trust a Democrat to come up with a feel-good solution that doesn’t make sense. He quickly sobered himself – he might not respect his rivals’ positions, but they were good at convincing people to donate and vote for them. And in the end, that was what mattered.
That said, he spotted an obvious problem. “How in the world are you proposing we fund all this?”
The Chairman and Secretary of Defense glanced over to the president, who was cool as a cucumber. He expected this question. “That’s a two part answer. First off, we’re going to make damn sure that if someone wants fusion reactors, they’re buying American – whether that’s completed reactors, tooling, or even production licenses. Second, we’re going to cut deals with the big players – take up more military responsibilities in their areas of influence, provide some funding and soldiers, and we’ll be willing to make Stargate Command a Joint Force operation.” He gave them all a sly grin. “The upside of Stargate Command obtaining so much technical knowledge is that there’s plenty of goodies to go around. We don’t need to keep it all – we just need to keep the best. And getting the most out of this isn’t going to be the work of a single administration – it’ll probably take two or three full administrations, at minimum.”
Kinsey and the other Republicans in the room looked at each other. Those words were an implicit, unwritten promise that they’d get credit for keeping things going if they won an election. But they all knew talk was cheap, and that once the president was out of the picture, the Democrats reneging on that promise was a real possibility.
“Just one question,” said the Republican Whip. “What about the Middle East?”
The Middle East was a shitshow the US was better off uninvolved in, in Kinsey’s considered opinion. The only reason it mattered was oil and the fact that Israel, a staunch US ally, were in the region. To be honest, if aliens flew by and leveled the place (Israel excepted, of course – the more religious of his constituents will lose their minds) without doing anything else, the world would be a better place. Part of the reason Kinsey was willing to back the fusion reactor program was because he remembered when OPEC squeezed America with high gas prices back in the Carter administration. As far as he was concerned, it was a matter of when, not if, the Saudis would screw them over again.
“That’ll take some finesse,” the president admitted. “We’re holding back some technologies from public release now to give them a chance to shift away from an oil based economy. Naturally, that’ll require some negotiations separate from the ones involving the stargate program.”
“If they go through Senate approval, that would be acceptable,” Kinsey spoke up, receiving nods from the rest of the Republicans in the room.
“Fantastic,” the president said with a smile. “What do you say we have these get-togethers once every three months after the New Year?”
Well, that explains why he asked for so little in return, Kinsey thought. The president was probably building up a list of concessions he wanted in exchange for supporting this program of his, and was going to wait until after the State of the Union to start playing hardball. That wasn’t ideal – it meant that things could be renegotiated on an ongoing basis, and this seeming sweetheart deal might not be as good it first seemed.
On the other hand, Kinsey had the power of the purse strings, so he was in a great position. If the president wanted more money for the stargate program or this industrial buildup of his, he’d have to go through Kinsey to get it. So he’d play along for now, get the credit for being a team player and focusing on the welfare of America, and if things started going sideways… well, he could at least earn some points with the constituents by saving some of their tax dollars.
Author's Notes: Yup, it's the fanfic trope of the fifth SG-1 member. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, as they say.
More seriously, it's a pretty painless way to embed a new faction's viewpoint character into a Stargate story. And it makes sense in the context of the Tollan being the mentors of the Tau'ri that they'd want some people out in the field to not only provide support when things get too technologically spohisticated for them to handle, but also to keep an eye out for NID/Trust schenanigans.
The Tollan having a wonky mix of Roman and Mesoamerican stuff going on is my attempt to reconcile the canon aesthetics (filmed in Canada) with the fact that the name Tollan is apparently from Central America. The planet being Coruscant-lite is in keeping with the dialogue from the Tollan intro episode, where the natives haven't seen or encountered animals at all.
Senator Kinsey's such a weird character to reexamine in the modern context, because his stated positions in his intro episode are actually pretty reasonable. He's definitely a sanctimonious asshole and shortsighted as hell, but his basic objection to the Stargate program in that episode was that it was a money pit with no obvious payoff. With the future information and an industrial program that benefits his home state, it's no surprise that he flips his position.
Capitol Building,
Fullhon, Tollan
October 1997
Colonel Jack O’Neill looked out the window at the capitol city of the Tollan, and all he could think was Nice to visit, wouldn’t want to live here.
That wasn’t a knock on the architecture, which was heavily Roman inspired with unexpected Central American flairs in the older structures, and heavily futuristic in the more modern structures. It was just that from every damn window he looked out of, there was nothing but urban sprawl as far as the eye could see. Maybe he was just old fashioned, maybe it was just the fact that appreciated some good old fashioned nature, but it was just too much for him.
He turned away from the window and returned to the buffet table, which was well stocked with food and drinks, all of it foreign but somewhat familiar. Whatever flaws the Tollan had with their urban planning, they were great at making an appealing buffet. As he refilled his cup with a fruit punch that had a bit of spicy aftertaste, one of the Tollan government members approached him.
Covering his lack of memory of the middle aged blonde woman’s name – Did I even get her name? – with a sip of his drink, O’Neill gave her a friendly smile.
“Councilor Aellyce,” the woman introduced herself. “Councilor of the Defense Ministry.”
“Nice to meet you. Colonel Jack O’Neill,” he said, putting his drink aside and offering her his hand to shake.
She blinked at the gesture, then accepted the shake. “Your name is quite memorable, so no reintroduction was necessary. But it was appreciated.”
“Yes, well, I was taught that never hurts to be polite,” O’Neill replied, grabbing his drink and holding up the cup up. “Like for example, you guys know how to make a great buffet spread. Great drinks too.”
The corners of Aellyce’s mouth pulled up. “I’ll be sure to pass your compliments on to the caterers and chefs.” Her expression became more serious. “I would like your opinion on whether or not your government would agree to our request to embed some of our officers in your SG teams.”
Well, can’t say she’s not qualified for the role, O’Neill thought as he covered a grimace with another sip of his drink.
“This is obviously above my pay grade,” he said, watching her go through the entire process of trying to parse the expression and realizing what it meant. “But I don’t think General Hammond would have an issue with that, as long they respect the chain of command.” He paused, then glanced over to where Joseph Faxon was talking to other members of the Tollan government. “Even if the Joint Chiefs don’t go for your people in every team, they might go for one on SG-1, given all the weird stuff we’ve run into over the past few missions.”
Aellyce nodded and after a little more small talk, moved on. O’Neill was grateful – he hated playing the social game, being a bit too low key and casual for that kind of thing. Hanging out with friends and family over a game of football was more his speed.
Luckily, Teal’c, sporting a gray suit due to his unusual legal status, was on his way back to the buffet, so he was spared any threat of another Tollan talking to him immediately. Teal’c grabbed himself some more punch and an assortment of appetizers that O’Neill personally didn’t think went well together, but maybe appealed more to the Jaffa palette. Or maybe the Chulak palette, O’Neill corrected himself.
“What do you think of the spread?” he asked.
One thing that fascinated the colonel was the fact that you could see aliens trying to understand what Earth humans were saying so obviously. Maybe it was because he was used to having Daniel and Carter on hand to translate things, but he didn’t feel as thrown for a loop when aliens spouted odd sayings at him.
“The food is quite good, O’Neill. I have not had anything of this quality outside of the court of Apophis.” The former First Prime had told the colonel about the time Apophis had invited him and Bra’tac to dine with him after a victory over Cronus in the week or so after their latest trip to Chulak, so it was high praise of the cuisine.
“Yeah, I wish we could get stuff this good all the time in the mess.” O’Neill paused, then added, “Not that the mess hall is particularly bad, but they’re more quantity over quality. Still better than MREs.”
“Field rations quite often leave much to be desired,” Teal’c said in agreement.
The colonel was going to offer another quip, but he spotted another Tollan approaching them, and quickly refiled his drink to fortify himself.
“Councilor Lero, of the Tollan Intelligence Services,” a short, unassuming tanned man with salt-and-pepper hair introduced himself. He nodded politely when the two members of SG-1 introduced himself, then bluntly asked O’Neill, “Colonel, how exactly is the Curia supposed to trust you when you can’t keep your own intelligence services in line?”
O’Neill looked at over at Teal’c as he sipped his drink, and then shrugged. “I guess it’s a good thing we’ve got you guys around to help us.”
Lero’s attitude shifted right then and there, reminding O’Neill exactly why he hated working with spooks from the various alphabet soup agencies. “Apologies, Colonel. We do what we have to get inside the heads of our friends and foes.”
“See, it’s that mind game stuff that gets you guys a bad reputation. Well, that and whenever you start playing games and get people killed.” O’Neill felt comfortable mouthing off to the man because he suspected that was what he wanted to hear. Plus, if they had to get Earth’s shit together, having the help of more super advanced aliens – even if they were humans – was probably a good thing.
“Perhaps on your world, but on Tollan, things developed a bit more sensibly,” the Tollan replied. “Although I admit, there were times when some people in positions like mine exceeded their remit. But we designed our systems a bit more thoughtfully, so it was easier to deal with.”
“Well, it’s a shame we didn’t have you guys around at the Constitutional Convention,” the colonel replied. “Probably would’ve saved us a lot of trouble over the years.”
Lero chuckled at that. “Perhaps we’ll be lucky to be around for a second one.”
As he walked away, O’Neill had the sneaking suspicion that he’d gotten a hint at some pastfuture knowledge that he wasn’t supposed to have… yet.
The White House,
Washington D.C.
October 1997
Senator Robert Kinsey, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, nodded, smiled, and shook hands with his various Congressional colleagues as they filed into a briefing room in the White House. He had no idea what this meeting, which included the major players of both parties and both parts of Congress, was about, just that it had delayed his personal briefing on what “Area 52” was. Apparently, the president had decided it was better to brief them all on Area 52, which required rushing some members through the clearance process and getting them to understand security classifications.
Personally, it made Kinsey suspicious about the program. Back during the Cold War, he could understand why the military spent so much damn money. Anyone who saw Soviet atrocities had reason to do anything and everything possible to prevent that happening here at home. It did mean that some wild and bad ideas were taken far more seriously than they should have, but it was better than the alternative.
Now? After the Soviet empire collapsed? Kinsey couldn’t see why the military kept trying to get new things authorized. Who needed a brand new design of fighter that wasn’t cheaper to make and would require who knows how many billions of dollars tossed in a hole before it even got flying? Just make more of the existing planes, with some cheaper updates, of course. And so on with each and every one of the services.
He might approve a program if some or all of the manufacturing was in his home state, but no, the fly-over states weren’t so lucky, and his state in particular. Bringing jobs to a state was a good way to earn votes, and since Kinsey was looking down the line to a presidential run, that would be a huge boon to his reputation. But since that wasn’t happening, he really had no reason toss more money at the intelligence agencies to play their cloak and dagger games overseas, which were generally cheaper and had a better pay off.
He paused when the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs entered, which underscored how serious this briefing was. He waited his turn to shake hands, then moved to his seat when the president came in. The Secret Service closed the doors and the briefing began with little fanfare.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the president began, “we’re here to discuss the most monumental event in human history.”
What Kinsey had thought to be the biggest crock of hyperbole quickly spun into a borderline insane tale of ancient alien empires and time travel. It got to the point that one of the members of the House asked, “Just to be clear – we have not been conspiring with aliens until this point, but we will now be conspiring with aliens to fight other aliens.”
“To our knowledge, that is true,” the Secretary of Defense replied. “We know of at least one alien that has remained on Earth since the time of the Egyptians running small cults, as well as various alien artifacts that may or may not have influenced people over the millennia.”
“Are we planning to do anything about this alien?” Kinsey asked, still struggling to wrap his head around the whole bundle of insanity.
“He is currently under investigation by the ATF, and will be dealt with by Stargate Command when they raid the compound,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs informed them.
Before the conversation could get further out of control, the Republican whip interjected with, “How about you tell us about these Go-uld we’ve apparently gotten ourselves into a war with.”
“Of course,” the Chairman said. “The Goa’uld are currently broken down into two camps. The first camp is the System Lords, who’re currently dealing with a contested succession between Apophis, the Goa’uld who kidnapped and killed one of our people, and Heru’ur, the son of Ra, who our first recon team killed. Apophis is currently organizing an attack on Earth, which we’re working with offworld allies to disrupt.”
“And that means?” the Whip asked.
“Ideally, we’re looking to capture the ship and a high value intelligence asset for a long term subversion operation,” the Chairman informed them. “Worst case, we can guarantee a mission kill by delivering a nuclear bomb aboard the ship.”
The Congress men and women around the table nodded their heads in approval. Having an alien warship would definitely secure American dominance, and certainly would have given them an appreciable technological lead over the other nations, if it weren’t for the even more advanced technology provided by future America. So the risks were definitely worth the payoff, not even factoring in the future defense of the planet.
“The other faction is controlled by a Goa’uld named Sokar, who has styled himself after the Devil, and possess a greater industrial base than the rest of the Goa’uld combined. He has fully industrialized homeworld, Delmak, and five other worlds in the core of his industrialized to a mid-1800s level.” The Chairman’s pause after this fact did not seem to be related to the severity of this situation, which made Kinsey suspicious that he was holding something back. “The good news is that if Sokar wanted to conquer Earth the hard way, he’s got to conquer his way through System Lord territory, and that’d leave him with huge flanks to defend. The bad news is that if he wanted to do it the easy way, he could melt his way through our current stargate defenses and send in an army, or just send in a ship to blast us from orbit.”
“So we have no means of defense right now?” One of the Democrats from the House asked.
“We in fact have one. It’s a device that can make the entire planet invisible and intangible,” the Secretary of Defense interjected. “The problem is that we can’t power it. It’d require more energy that the US is currently outputting from all of its power plants… combined.”
“So ‘no’?” That was a wry rejoinder from Henry Hayes, a rising star in the Republican party. Also a potential rival to Kinsey, but the senator was well aware that politics made odd bedfellows. Hayes and Kinsey shared a lot of policy positions, especially on spending, so that was one ally he could potentially rely on whenever the president got around to his point.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re here because there’s a way to solve this problem, but involves us all working together to do it.” The president paused, locking eyes with everyone in the room. “And I do mean everyone, not just the people in this room. We’re talking about the biggest industrial effort since World War II.” He turned to the Secretary of Defense. “Show them.”
The Secretary of Defense pulled out a brief case from under the table, then passed out maps of the United States covered in a spider web of lines. As Kinsey looked over his copy of the map, the Secretary explained the plan to build fusion reactors, solid state batteries, and the tooling for both in the flyover states. It didn’t take a genius to see an opportunity to earn votes and solidify the loyalty of the voting bases of those states for their respective party, and Kinsey knew that it might mean his party losing a few states for a lifetime or more… but the payoff was worth it.
Still the game had to be played. “So, what do you want in exchange?”
“First of all, some black project funding for a prototype reactor,” the president replied. “Second, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs hasn’t presented their plan yet.”
The next few minutes were basically the military demanding new toys that would cost money, with the only cost saving idea being making bullet casings out of plastic. Kinsey could stomach that, though, because the plan was to spread out the manufacturing all over the country, so at least it would provide some jobs to his constituents. He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes when one of the Democrats asked about using the proposed stockpiling of weapons to get guns off the street. While Kinsey himself didn’t care for modern guns, his voters did, and besides, half the problem was the fact that the Democrats were too soft on crime.
Actually, now that he thought about it, what if they used the stargate to shove the worst criminals somewhere out of the way…
His thoughts were interrupted by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs expressing aggressive patience with the politician in question. “Ma’am, that would be extremely counterproductive to the secrecy of the Stargate Program and our defensive preparations. First of all, we’re already dealing with paranoid citizens who think the government is actively trying to disarm them. We’d not only be justifying that paranoia, we’d be giving the Goa’uld onworld a massive propaganda boon. Second, doing that would immediately attract attention from foreign intelligence, because it’s so atypical of our behavior. Third, we want weapons that are actually useful to a resistance effort and standardized enough to ensure interoperability. To be blunt, there’s no way to ensure standardization in a timely manner besides filling the stockpiles with refurbished older weapons and new production of the weapons we already use.”
Kinsey had to hide a smile. Trust a Democrat to come up with a feel-good solution that doesn’t make sense. He quickly sobered himself – he might not respect his rivals’ positions, but they were good at convincing people to donate and vote for them. And in the end, that was what mattered.
That said, he spotted an obvious problem. “How in the world are you proposing we fund all this?”
The Chairman and Secretary of Defense glanced over to the president, who was cool as a cucumber. He expected this question. “That’s a two part answer. First off, we’re going to make damn sure that if someone wants fusion reactors, they’re buying American – whether that’s completed reactors, tooling, or even production licenses. Second, we’re going to cut deals with the big players – take up more military responsibilities in their areas of influence, provide some funding and soldiers, and we’ll be willing to make Stargate Command a Joint Force operation.” He gave them all a sly grin. “The upside of Stargate Command obtaining so much technical knowledge is that there’s plenty of goodies to go around. We don’t need to keep it all – we just need to keep the best. And getting the most out of this isn’t going to be the work of a single administration – it’ll probably take two or three full administrations, at minimum.”
Kinsey and the other Republicans in the room looked at each other. Those words were an implicit, unwritten promise that they’d get credit for keeping things going if they won an election. But they all knew talk was cheap, and that once the president was out of the picture, the Democrats reneging on that promise was a real possibility.
“Just one question,” said the Republican Whip. “What about the Middle East?”
The Middle East was a shitshow the US was better off uninvolved in, in Kinsey’s considered opinion. The only reason it mattered was oil and the fact that Israel, a staunch US ally, were in the region. To be honest, if aliens flew by and leveled the place (Israel excepted, of course – the more religious of his constituents will lose their minds) without doing anything else, the world would be a better place. Part of the reason Kinsey was willing to back the fusion reactor program was because he remembered when OPEC squeezed America with high gas prices back in the Carter administration. As far as he was concerned, it was a matter of when, not if, the Saudis would screw them over again.
“That’ll take some finesse,” the president admitted. “We’re holding back some technologies from public release now to give them a chance to shift away from an oil based economy. Naturally, that’ll require some negotiations separate from the ones involving the stargate program.”
“If they go through Senate approval, that would be acceptable,” Kinsey spoke up, receiving nods from the rest of the Republicans in the room.
“Fantastic,” the president said with a smile. “What do you say we have these get-togethers once every three months after the New Year?”
Well, that explains why he asked for so little in return, Kinsey thought. The president was probably building up a list of concessions he wanted in exchange for supporting this program of his, and was going to wait until after the State of the Union to start playing hardball. That wasn’t ideal – it meant that things could be renegotiated on an ongoing basis, and this seeming sweetheart deal might not be as good it first seemed.
On the other hand, Kinsey had the power of the purse strings, so he was in a great position. If the president wanted more money for the stargate program or this industrial buildup of his, he’d have to go through Kinsey to get it. So he’d play along for now, get the credit for being a team player and focusing on the welfare of America, and if things started going sideways… well, he could at least earn some points with the constituents by saving some of their tax dollars.
Author's Notes: Yup, it's the fanfic trope of the fifth SG-1 member. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, as they say.
More seriously, it's a pretty painless way to embed a new faction's viewpoint character into a Stargate story. And it makes sense in the context of the Tollan being the mentors of the Tau'ri that they'd want some people out in the field to not only provide support when things get too technologically spohisticated for them to handle, but also to keep an eye out for NID/Trust schenanigans.
The Tollan having a wonky mix of Roman and Mesoamerican stuff going on is my attempt to reconcile the canon aesthetics (filmed in Canada) with the fact that the name Tollan is apparently from Central America. The planet being Coruscant-lite is in keeping with the dialogue from the Tollan intro episode, where the natives haven't seen or encountered animals at all.
Senator Kinsey's such a weird character to reexamine in the modern context, because his stated positions in his intro episode are actually pretty reasonable. He's definitely a sanctimonious asshole and shortsighted as hell, but his basic objection to the Stargate program in that episode was that it was a money pit with no obvious payoff. With the future information and an industrial program that benefits his home state, it's no surprise that he flips his position.
Fantastic update Bullethead. And yeah it's interesting seeing everyone playing politics and Jack hating every second of it. What was interesting was seeing Kinsey and his political calculations and how they flipped from cannon. Very, very interesting to see.
There's only so many of the really masochistic ones around.
Plus, to be real, a lot of criminals wouldn't actually be useful in a functioning society. Once you become a violent felon, your value starts dropping like a rock.
Also, Kinsey's basically thinking about Rura Penthe from Star Trek, or that one alien prison SG-1 got dumped off in that one episode where they accidentally helped out a megacriminal who went on to invent a de-aging serum and applied it to a whole population.
A De-aging serum that sterilized them.