Ch.121

We sat down for the briefing and I explained to them. "I don't know what triggered it specifically but I remembered something. Back when I was ascended, I met another ascended who looked like me. His name was Orlin and he was an ancient from back before Atlantis was built thirty million years ago. He ascended and I'd found it a curiosity that we looked alike so I observed him while he observed some humans."

I grimaced. "The goa'uld attacked their world and in the midst of global defeat, Orlin gave five of them the knowledge of how to build an ancient weapon capable of wiping out the goa'uld fleet. The trouble was Orlin used ascended knowledge and broke the rules the others set."

Sam asked. "They stopped them?"

I shook my head. "No, it's much worse. The humans built the weapon and it worked. They wiped out the entire fleet."

Jack asked. "How is that worse?"

I grunted. "Because they took that knowledge and decided to try conquering every world they could come across."

Jack's jaw dropped. "Oh."

I nodded. "The others stepped in then, wiping out every man, woman and child on the planet, reducing the population to one. They banished Orlin to the planet and I visited him from time to time because personally I hadn't done anything and I felt damned bad about it."

Sam spoke up. "He couldn't have known."

I shrugged. "The rules are there for a reason."

I sighed. "Orlin only removed the power core because ancients lacked common sense no matter how smart they were. Yeah, I know I'm one of them. Anyways, Sam could've easily replaced the power core with a naquadah generator or scanned the building for schematics to build our own. If either event happened, you'd all be dead. The others don't joke around. They'd hold Orlin and myself responsible and punish us both by killing you all and wiping out earth if to prove a point to us."

Jack winced. "Tough crowd."

I nodded. "Hypocritical bastards more like, but there's a reason I'm not floating on clouds and playing the role of a judgmental asshole. I disagreed with their methods and point of view in a big way, but I understand where they're coming from as well. Ascended aren't gods and they have no right to play god with the lives of others, but they refuse to go further, stop floating around and find a higher existence. They like where they are and they judge others for not being able to look on with apathy."

I shrugged and General Hammond asked. "Can you be sure if that's what would've happened?"

I nodded. "There's a big rule with them. No one is allowed to use ascended knowledge for any reason to change the events of those below them in the mortal realm. You can get banished for simply interfering, stuck on a planet or an outcast like Oma Desala, but to give the knowledge away to those lower you're confined to that planet until such time as you descend or ascend higher and find a different plane of existence. It's the worst punishment they can devise because they can't actually kill you if you're ascended. Everyone's equally immortal, just not equally powerful."

I shrugged. "Plus I saw Orlin when I came out of the building so I know I'm not mistaken about the planet."

I turned to the hiding ascended. "Am I old friend?"

He seemed surprised but I snorted. "Kid, I'm older than our race so stop fooling around and show yourself. It's not like the others can punish you again being banished and all."

He appeared and Sam gasped. "Oh my. He does look like you if a lot shorter."

He apologized saying it'd been a long time since I'd come to the planet, more than a century now and he missed having someone to talk to so he followed me here. Daniel asked all kinds of questions and I facepalmed. "Daniel, I just said sharing knowledge is forbidden and while they can't punish him much more they can smite the earth and wipe out everyone except Orlin and I. Please refrain from asking the ascended lightning rod of bad luck anymore questions."

Orlin smiled wryly. "It's alright. I learned my lesson a long time ago."

I grunted. "If that were true you'd have fully destroyed the weapon, not haunted it because you took the battery out. My two year old son could figure out what was wrong even if he doesn't yet know how to replace the battery."

Orlin blushed, well, as much as an ascended could blush. He said it was gone now and that's all that matters. I turned to General Hammond. "Permission to send a large yield naquadah enhanced tactical nuke to make sure? Him saying it's gone makes me really nervous. I wouldn't trust his definition of gone even if he were a doctor talking about Jack's clap."

Jack scowled and said he didn't have the clap. I shrugged. "Normally I'd agree, but if Orlin said you didn't I'd rush you to the hospital to check for every disease under the sun cause that's how inaccurate his definition of gone is."

General Hammond said he'd send a team to check and if necessary plant a naquadah enhanced bomb to ensure the threat is taken care of. Orlin sighed, saying there was no need because he had to return regardless so he'd just reduce what's left to slag. He asked to see my son so I showed him a hologram of him saying he was at home at the moment so I couldn't just bring him here.

He said it was a cute kid before saying he'd often wondered what it'd be like to be a father. I sighed. "It's a living stress nightmare and dream of worry filled with joy and happy moments of the purest love you'll ever feel and the sheerest terror a man can know."

He said it sounded exhilarating and I chuckled with Jack and George as well as Sam who took my hand. He left a few minutes later saying he'd go see what the Oma Desala ascended woman was up to. I wished him luck and many fat babies before he shook his head wryly and left through the gate back to his punishment wasteland. It was confirmed later that the last building was entirely reduced to metal slag with no discernible marks as if it just became a puddle of metal.

With that headache out of the way, things progressed to the point where Jack, an alien called a Reol and I were trapped on a planet by enemy Jaffa. I distracted the Jaffa in my suit while Jack and I killed them and I collected their armor, weapons and the busted Alkesh. When Jack shot down a death glider, I left him with my suit and came back with a staff cannon, fucking up groups of Jaffa before I got my suit back and took their weapons and armor as well.

Sam, Teal'c and Daniel arrived then and said Lt.Tyler didn't exist and was in fact an alien. I shrugged. "Doesn't change the fact that he needs our help and he's better off away from the goa'uld along with whatever they'd use him for."

They didn't argue and Tyler asked. "You knew?"

I nodded. "Not a lot of things out there that can affect my mind. I've not heard of your race, but I can see you for what you truly look like. You haven't made a move on us so your need for help against the goa'uld seemed like as good a reason as any to fight them. You're just another innocent in my eyes, asking for help. What does it matter what you look like or what you can do?"

I pointed to a rock and lifted it with telekinesis, shooting it outwards at extremely speeds and killing dozens of Jaffa coming at us from behind. "We're all weird here kid."

I hopped off the side of the broken wall and passed the cannon to Teal'c. "We should go though. As fun as this is not, it's about to get really bad if we stay here much longer since death gliders and alkesh mean a hatak is nearby or on it's way and my guns can't hurt it unless it enters the atmosphere and nearly lands."

I took out the mini gun and Jack told me to pass him the BFG if we going to do this. I scowled and passed it to him, telling him to get his own next time. He said Sam had his on layaway and it's be Christmas at least plus sharing was caring. I huffed and we found the Jaffa setting up a perimeter by the gate.

Seeing them Tyler got antsy, but I told Jack. "You're up. Set your auto lock and make sure no one's behind you."

He did so before a spike shot out into the ground before he fired a silent hissing round. It went up, sparked, shattered into hundreds of pieces and rained hell on the jaffa, tearing through their armor like tissue paper. All of them died in seconds before I grunted. "First live fire and I don't even get to do it myself. Buzzkill. Let's go."

Jack ejected the empty round and the spike returned before the safety was put on while we left. I held the empty round over the bodies and the shards were sucked back into it to their surprise. It was bloody, but it saved on ammo while I took the staff weapons, grenades and staff cannons they'd been setting up. Once I picked up the shrunken pallet, we dialed out and a bunch of Jaffa came running.

I opened fire with the basic Titan mini gun, shredding them before the Reol left through the gate to his home world and we dialed earth. Back at the SGC, I gave my report and Colonel Simmons asked why I didn't bring the creature back for study. I grunted. "Cause it's an innocent sentient being and not a lab rat you moron."

I walked away. "Idiots wonder why no one's willing to give them advanced technology. They're the ones that need to be taken apart and played with."

Sam rubbed my back and Jack said he'd made the decision to let the guy go because he was just an innocent bystander and one day his people may become our allies if we don't start acting like goa'ulds and taken them apart for study. A full month passed of quiet routine missions before Daniel had us free his Unas friend and all the Unas. I took all the weapons of the Unas and the humans, telling them that if they use them to slaughter or enslave then they're no better than the goa'uld or the humans that enslave them.

The torture devices and chains were taken as well so it entirely a free for all. The Unas beat the humans into agreeing for them to be treated as equals and the only ones that died were the assholes enslaving and torturing them before they were sold. Chaka, Daniel's Unas friend, brokered the negotiations and peace while we left. Next up was the Russians issues and only because we found a temple with Russian cigarettes outside.

That was entirely unfun especially having to capture the goa'uld, ensuring the eye of Tiamat stayed missing and taking all the goa'uld technology including the ring platform and sarcophagus. The goa'uld part was easy, the eye less so because the Russians just wouldn't give up until they triggered a trap that got us sealed inside. I "found" the eye of Tiamat and recognized it almost immediately.

I frowned telling the Russians they couldn't make use of it even if they did have it because it was ancient technology and a precursor to the potentia or ZPM. Sam was surprised and I put it away before gathering the dead as well. The Russian colonel said it was sort of their mission and I told him. "Sucks for your mission then because the eye is my people's technology and not something I'd let you or the US government get ahold of. If you screwed with it wrong it could blow up the solar system before you could spell oops. My wife and son happen to live in the solar system so you aren't getting it and neither is the US."

He backed off and Daniel asked if it really was that powerful after all this time. I sighed. "The goa'uld aren't advanced enough to even understand the technology let alone make use of it so it's been dormant for over forty million years give or take. Sadly these older models are powerful but also highly unstable and you'd need six of them to pull out a thousandth of the full power of a single modern ZPM. Still, any ZPM or precursor take power from zero point energy in a subspace pocket dimension and is more than capable of wiping out a star system in a brilliant flash of light so fast you'd blink and I'd be floating in space alone, naked and covered in radiation burns."

They all grimaced and we headed back to earth where I turned in everything except the eye of Tiamat. Colonel Chekov of the Russian Air Force demanded it until I told him what it could do and that I wasn't giving it to anyone because it was too damned dangerous in such a young race's hands and that includes the Asgard. I told him there were six of them and to even use their full power they'd need them all anyways.