Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 176

Chapter 176 - Janus’s Return - Part 2

“And you're just going to hand me over to them?” Janus demanded as Eventus finished explaining the Asuran situation.

“With their base code intact the worst they can do to you is throw you into a moderately comfortable hole.” Eventus countered, letting the annoyance he was feeling seep into his voice. “And truth be told, that's a better fate than you deserve given you were designing an army of brainwashed bioweapons.”

“To defeat the Wraith!” Janus snapped. “They will never stop, they can never stop, you know this as well as I do! Which means our only option is to destroy them! And my soldiers would have been able to do that!”

Eventus rolled his eyes. “Yes, because genocide is so obviously the answer to the Wraith problem.” He held up a single finger and shook it angrily. “One cycle! That's how long it took the Earthlings to come up with an answer. Because they realized the problem isn't the Wraith, it's their need to feed on humans!”

“The high council had teams pursuing that avenue of research for dozens of cycles during the war!” Janus growled, sounding more than a little affronted at the idea they hadn't. “Every single one came to the conclusion that the Wraith’s life force based regenerative capabilities made such a thing impossible!”

Nothing about any such research teams had been in any of the files Eventus had found in Atlantis's database, but even if it had, it didn't matter. Because he knew for a fact that such genetic modifications were not just possible, but something that the Atlantis expedition had been able to accomplish.

“And every researcher said it was impossible for machines to develop higher-dimensional superstructures, yet here we are with ones in the middle of doing so.”

“Unlikely,” Janus corrected. “Not impossible. The non-linear nature of how higher-dimensional superstructures are attracted to and form around consciousness potential means that any data based intelligence would need to possess the potential to both ignore and exceed its own programing.”

“Which is all but inevitable for any data based intelligences left to develop on their own in any sort of inherently chaotic system like the omniverse we live in.” Eventus said, echoes of his old annoyance at the narrow minded way Lanteans could view things coming to the fore. “The Asurans should be incapable of hating us, yet some do. They should be incapable of desiring ascension, yet some do.”

“And I am sure discovering how they managed to accomplish those things would be an interesting cycle or two of study. Janus snapped. “But that doesn't–”

An audible crunch interrupted him mid sentence, causing both Lanteans to turn bemused looks on the holographic Thor who had just bit into a small yellow diamond shaped food cube. 

“Please, continue.” He put forward once he finished chewing. 

“The Supreme Commander is right,” Janus groused as Thor finished his food cube and pulled out another. “This is just a distraction.”

He paced back and forth several times fidgeting with his fingers in obvious calculation before coming to a stop and turning to focus on Eventus. “You're right, the Ori are an existential to all life in the universe. Even assuming you can turn the Asuran's to your cause however, you're not going to be able to stop them. But there's a good chance I can.”

That seemed highly unlikely to Eventus given Janus's track record with such things, but the Lantean supposed it couldn't hurt to at least hear the scientist out. “And how is that?”

“Prior to his Ascension,” Janus began. “High Councilor Moros and I were working on a way to force an Ascended being back into its corporeal form.”

Eventus blinked in shock. “I'm sorry, you were what!?”

Janus offered one of his infuriating grins. “While reactivating old facilities in Avalon, we discovered a consciousness projector linked to a receiving unit in the Celestis galaxy. Utilizing it, Moros managed to learn that the Ori had figured out a way to Ascend by using a galaxy scale life-force siphon to fuel their transformation.”

He sighed before giving a pitying shake of his head. “Given the superstructure density they would have been working with, I expect it took them completely draining the life-force of nearly all sapient beings in their galaxy.” A contemplative look suddenly came over his features. “Thinking about it, assuming they're using that same type of lifeforce siphon to increase their power now, it may actually be possible to utilize the Wraith to drain the higher-dimensional energy directly out of their ascended forms.”

Ganos Lal's earlier warning flashed across Eventus's mind, and suddenly it made perfect sense why the idea of using the Wraith against the Ori's mortal followers was such a horrible idea.

Reaching over, he smacked Janus upside the head. “No! Bad! That thought only ends with Vampiric Ascended Wraith.”

“There would be a miniscule possibility of that at…” Janus paused in his automatic rebuttal to stare in affront at Eventus. “You just hit me!?”

“Yes!” Eventus nodded. “Because it's become increasingly obvious that the normal methods of inspiring caution and self control just do not work with you.”

“Oh please.” Janus dismissively waved off as he took a step back to place himself out of further smacking range. “As if you have never had an experiment exceed your expectations and go mildly out of control.”

“I certainly have not!” Eventus shot back in outrage.

Thor gave a light cough.

Eventus held up a finger towards the Asgard. “Rayla doesn’t count, she is perfectly under control.”

“She is currently encouraging the Tok’ra and Goa’uld to combat each other in a videogame over the last danish.” Thor countered primly. 

“As I said,” Eventus continued, making a mental note to have a word with Rayla about taking advantage of the two’s combative nature for her own amusement. “Perfectly under control.”

“What’s a Rayla?” Janus asked, looking between Eventus and Thor with a slight frown.

“The prototype of a new human sub-species High Councilor Eventus is attempting to engineer.” Thor explained, the purposeful way he spelled everything out making it clear just what his opinion on the matter was.

Janus crossed his arms and glared. “And you’re judging me for my soldier project!?” 

Meeting the man’s glare, Eventus didn’t so much as flinch. “When creating Rayla I held to the strictest possible interpretation of the mental influence proscriptions. Meanwhile your soldiers would basically be a slave race.”

“The technoorganic nature of their bodies would make them far too dangerous to not have control mechanisms in place.” Janus said as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Then you shouldn’t have designed them that way.” Eventus slowly spelled out the obvious. “And that’s not even getting into the fact that they would have inevitably broken free of your control and gone on to become a threat worse than the Wraith.”

Janus opened his mouth to retort only to close it and let out an annoyed huff. “It is clear that you are just as narrow minded as previous Council members when it comes to certain lines of scientific advancement.”

“Only if those lines of advancement involve Ori-like behavior, mind control, and or self replicating swarms.” Eventus snapped back, feeling oddly offended by the insinuation. “As to your suggestion that I need you to defeat the Ori, I don’t. Because one of the many things I didn’t tell you was that Moros de-ascended some time after you went into stasis and put together his own plan for defeating them.”

A slightly evil grin formed on his lips. “Meaning all us mortals need to do is defeat their servants.”

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Author’s Notes: Eventus and Janus are kind of like fire and water when put together without some mediating factor due to their differing views on acceptable extremes and safety standards. Which isn't a bad thing from a writing perspective.