Ch.98

Weeks later Samantha and I had talked things over and even gone dancing before Jack had his encounter with a crystal creature. Then it was off to see the Nox as the SG teams had no luck before. I went unarmed and suggested the team do as well, but told them that was up to them. When we arrived, I reached out and felt the nearby Nox with my mind, introducing myself telepathically.

Ohper, Lya and Anteaus showed themselves with a young Nox boy. Anteaus spoke in ancient, saying it'd been a long time since one of my people had come. I told him that most of us had ascended or died off and I myself had been ascended until a while ago, deciding that my path diverged from ascension for now. I switched to English after helping them understand it. "The humans of earth have the potential to be the fifth race and so I've brought a few who wish to learn whatever you're willing to share with them. They wish to learn your ways and while they are warriors defending their own planet, you must understand why I cannot teach them."

Anteaus looked to them while Lya nodded in a slight bow. "Of course wise one."

I sighed. "While they stay so long as you permit it, I would like to share with you all my experience leading to ascension. I know some of your people choose to follow the great path and I believe it may help, for whatever it's worth."

Ohper bowed lightly so I shared my experience with them fully with no lies up until I let it all fall away and my memory goes blank. Anteaus thanked me and I turned to Daniel as well as those with him, telling them good luck and try to learn without causing problems. I returned to earth without the team and told General Hammond they were in it and how much they learned from the Nox would depend on how well they listened.

As it turns out, they don't listen so well as on the first sign of Apophis being on the planet, they planned an ambush. After several altercations, they were sent back and the Nox gate was buried. All Jack would say was that the very young do not always do as they're told. Weeks later we were on a planet called Argos with an Ancient Greek people who used nanites accidentally because they were already infected.

Jack caught the nanites in the way of an STD and he was aging fast so I found the source, shut down the nanites and reprogrammed the ones in him to fix him before shutting themselves down and leaving his body. I kept a small sample and General Hammond asked why. I told him they weren't that advanced, but I could reprogram them to consume the right materials and become more advanced and useful for healing any medical ailment humans have.

He asked if that wouldn't be against the laws of the others. I raised an eyebrow. "These are for me and my own uses. If you and a team of programmers happen to be looking over my shoulder why I talk allowed about my work as apart of my process then it's nothing more than what you've learned by your own means. If said process were recorded by hand because cameras can't see or hear me, then that's all the better for you and your people."

Samantha asked. "You've worked with nanites before as weapons I take it?"

I nodded. "Weapons, an effective means of making more sophisticated power sources and even bio weapons. We were desperate towards the end of the war. I'd died several times fighting the wraith. They can suck the lifeforce from your body through their hand, feeding on you until you rapidly age to death."

They grimaced and I asked with a small smile. "Suddenly head snakes aren't so bad now huh?"

Samantha nodded and asked. "How did they eat the ancients?"

I sighed. "They got ahold over several of our off world outposts and got their hands on a few potentia. You would likely refer to them as zero point modules. They're the most advanced power source the ancients had and if I ever complete my work when I return to Atlantis, they'll be obsolete by the newer model. Anyways, they cloned themselves using the ZPM if you prefer, making thousands in weeks and growing so fast we couldn't kill them fast enough."

I rubbed my temples and grunted. "We were far more advanced, but they were determined and had larger numbers. So we created something that could multiply and grow just as fast, human form nanite weapons. Unfortunately for the more complex form an AI is needed to control them in large enough quantities. These Asurans as they were called, began to think and feel for themselves and with the aggressive coding to destroy the wraith, they went about it in a devastating way to get back at us."

I turned in my chair to look at General Hammond. "The wraith feed on humans so the replicators decided to starve them by wiping out human worlds. Dozens of major population worlds had fallen to a nanite virus that caused things like fatal seizures, explosive tumors and other near instantaneous deaths. It was horrific that in our hour of greatest need we'd created a weapon that could do all except turn on us and it caused such devastation that many of the council lost the will to fight on. I lead a faction to continue the war efforts by ship, evacuating our worlds to Atlantis where we were safe. Several other city ships had been in the progress of being built, but weren't completed because the materials were needed for war ships."

Daniel asked. "And the nanites?"

I winced. "There was a great argument amongst the council about what to do. I'd argued in favor of forgiving them, stripping the aggression and having them join us. They were harmless to us, programmed never to hurt us. Moros, the high councilor at the time, refused. He was so damned angry over the losses that he refused to see what we'd done. The Asurans were thinking, feeling, dreaming even. We'd created life, artificial or not and we were responsible for it."

I grunted. "He couldn't win the argument in open court, so he sent the override program to call them back to the planet and took the fleet from behind my back as high commander of the Lantean war fleet and destroyed them using the most advanced drone weapons I'd ever created. They were unstoppable and the Asurans couldn't fight back against their creators. It was genocide. The extinction of a new race who were merely children rebelling because we forced them into a war they barely understood."

Jack grunted. "They were robots."

I looked to him coldly. "The human mind is equivalent of a super computer and the entire body is built to keep it functioning at optimum levels. You are as human as they were in many ways. They lived, had hopes, dreams, goals and existential questions beyond when the Simpsons were coming on Jack. They were alive and all life was sacred under Alteran law. They may have lacked souls as you would see them, but many were developing humanity, compassion and the desire to be more than weapons of war. They wanted peace and we forced them to kill. We were the heartless ones, not them. They didn't understand what it was they were doing and they were angry so they hurt us in a way they knew they'd get our attention. It worked and they were destroyed."

Samantha asked. "Is that what-"

I shook my head. "No. I won't be building enough for a need for a sophisticated AI capable of nanite replication beyond the designs I set forth. No, these will become the foundation for my armor. A suit capable of covering my body in moments or becoming a watch moments later, only capable of healing extreme damage or removing diseases, pathogens and other nanites. No sophisticated AI core needed. They'll no more think than your microwave can. Only do what is instructed."

Jack spoke up. "Never thought you'd get emotional over a robot."

I grunted. "What? Too real for you? The murder of those worlds can be laid at my feet. I was ultimately responsible as the project leader and believe what you will, but if I'd removed the aggression programming when they begged it of me, all of those lives could've been spared. They knew our laws, accepted that all life was sacred and couldn't understand why we were breaking them to attack the wraith. We were responsible, I was responsible. I'd given the Lanteans my blood to experiment with to find their own immortality and it cost an entire galaxy thousands of generations of lives to this very day. It took me a hell of a long time to let it go before I could ascend and I swore that I'd I ever returned to mortal form I would wipe out the wraith for the atrocities they committed."

Daniel asked. "But aren't the Wraith just like the Asurans?"

I growled before shaking my head slowly in a sigh. "Maybe at one time. But the faction that created them was too scientific and less worried about humanitarian costs. They were already breaking our highest laws by kidnapping humans and experimenting on them so they didn't bulk at torture, inhumane treatment and leaving the wraith less than human. They are predators who feed on humans with the mental powers of an ancient only to more extreme degrees. Trust me when I say no good will come of mistaking them for anything beyond that. Millions of Lanteans may have been killed by the wraith, but billions of humans were wiped out in their feeding while others still were tortured and experimented on for fun."

I stood up. "Anyways, there's nothing I can do about it from here and it will take time to artificially synthesize the elements and materials needed to make my suit and the more advanced nanites capable of neural synchronization for me to control them with my own thoughts."

Samantha asked. "You can do that?"

I nodded. "With the right elements and the more advanced nanites. Like I said, it'll take time to build a proper suit from backwater low grade goa'uld technology no doubt stolen from a more advanced society than their own when they destroyed them. The wraith and the goa'uld are a lot alike, but unlike the goa'uld, there's no possible way for the wraith to become good at heart. Their hunger sees to it that they'll never be satisfied until all human life is wiped out or kept in cattle pens to be fed on as necessary."

Jack asked. "And the goa'uld are better how?"

I smiled wryly. "There is hope for some of them to overcome their genetic predisposition. Very little, but it is there. They don't even need humans to survive if they didn't originate in them. Teal'c says they took on other species as hosts so clearly they choose humans as the best ones meaning they didn't always need a human form, they can survive as symbiotes."

Daniel grunted. "So they choose to do evil, that's nice, I can see how they can be redeemed."

I gave him a droll stare. "Evil is a choice, yes. It's not born without good as the two aren't mutually exclusive. They are symbiotic and I see the wraith as no more evil than the Asurans, only as predators and prey. That is the difference. Symbiotes can choose to be good just like they choose to be evil and while it must be rare, it isn't impossible. If we can find goa'uld that are resisting their evil then perhaps true extinction of the goa'uld race isn't necessary here, only the extinction of those enslaving and murdering worlds."