Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 157

Chapter 157 - Small Conversations

After finishing up his work in locking down the molecular reconstructor, Eventus had used his interface’s sensors to try and hunt down Teal’c’s location only to find the dot representing the Jaffa’s lifesigns vibrating rather wildly on top of the dot representing Ishta’s. Not wanting to interrupt the pair, he had ducked back to Bra’tak’s chambers, which he had been somewhat surprised to find the older Jaffa actually in.

“It is good you did not interrupt.” Bra’tac grinned as Eventus finished his somewhat edited explanation for why he had returned alone. “Ishta is fierce, and it would not have ended well for you if you had.”

“Honestly?” Eventus gave an amused shake of his head. “I was more worried about Teal’c. He feels like the type that would wait a decade to get revenge.”

“You understand him well.” Bra’tac agreed, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. “You have my apologies for what happened in the council chambers, none of us expected Gerak to bring one of the Ori’s servants.”

He grimaced. “I suspect he wished to pit you against each other in hopes of learning that which would not have otherwise been revealed.”

Eventus scowled slightly at that. “If so I hope it was worth it, because the Ori aren’t likely to let this lie.”

Bra’tac frowned. “You believe there will be reprisal for the Prior’s death?”

“Not directly.” Eventus said. “They would have already sent more Prior’s here if that were the case.” And he had been monitoring the Stargate for that. “But they’re likely to take the Prior’s death as an indicator that more extreme methods will be needed to convince your people to convert to Origin.”

The annoying part of that was that he didn’t really know what those more extreme methods might be. Their normal plague wasn’t likely given the Jaffa, both Prim’ta holders and Tretonin users alike, should be protected from that avenue of attack. But that still left a whole breadth of natural seeming disasters and even biologically engineered weapons that they could potentially unleash to try and convince at least some of Jaffa of the Ori's divinity.

“And you do not know what these methods might be.” Bra'tac guessed.

“Not specifically.” Eventus admitted in an apologetic tone. “All I know is that eventually some random seeming disaster will strike, and they'll show up with a faux miracle to solve it.”

Truly iInsidious.” Bra'tac scowled. 

It wasn't really, but Eventus knew the Goa'uld had been something of a low bar so far as the idea of winning hearts and minds was concerned. Though that thought brought an unfortunate possibility to mind.

“Thinking about it, if they can't convert your people, they might try turning the humans on your worlds against you.”

Something like that would probably play great to the humans in the Ori galaxy since they could portray it as if they were going to free the humans of the Avalon galaxy from their oppressors. 

“I fear that would likely be more simple of a task then you suspect.” Bra'tac grudgingly confessed. “With the fall of the false gods many of my people have been less than accommodating of the full freedoms that should have followed.”

“Not anywhere near the extent which they were.” He quickly added in. “But enough that the Ori would be likely to find a number of ears open to such an attempt.”

Eventus wasn't really surprised to hear that given the Jaffa didn't exactly have other forms of governance to use as an example of the sorts of things that did and didn't work. Like the political issues on Earth however, the problems facing the Jaffa on that front weren't his responsibility to solve.

“Moving on, I don't suppose the High Council managed to come to a decision?”

“They are still split.” Bra'tac shook his head. “Two thirds like Ishta wish your peoples help in ridding ourselves from the curse of the Goa'uld. The remaining third however wish to ask for your knowledge of Ascension.”

“That's it?” Eventus asked, somehow feeling a headache come on even though his power should have prevented it. “You didn't think you could ask for both?”

“We did not wish to offend.” Bra'tac put forward awkwardly. 

Eventus choked back a laugh at the unintentional absurdity of that statement. “Knowledge about the path to Ascension is the one thing we share freely with any who ask.”

Mostly because the paths they had managed to pin down, at least before they had returned to Avalon, couldn't really be used without either hitting the genetic lottery, or significant amounts of self realization.

“Though I should probably warn you before you get your hopes up, we weren't Oma Desala. She was bringing the wisdom of the ascended down to the lower planes. While we just know what was discovered through scientific study.”

Their knowledge of Ascension had allowed some rare few to accomplish it, but it hadn’t been in the numbers that later discoveries had apparently allowed, let alone the level of near guaranteed success Oma had provided.

“That may be a good thing.” Bra’tac bowed his head. “Having experienced her teachings first hand, I can say with certainty the first step would likely not appeal to many of my people.”

“Do you mind if I ask something a bit personal?" Eventus began after several seconds, the small itch of this particular question having been eating at him for a while.

“You may,” Bra'tac began with a quirk lipped grin. “Though know, I may not choose to answer.”

That nearly made Eventus laugh, but he clamped down on the feeling given the serious nature of what he wanted to ask. “Is there a reason you don't remove the forehead brands and tattoos?”

A series of complicated expressions flashed across Bra'tac's face before settling into a melancholy look. “Many wish to keep them as a reminder of the adversity they fought through to reach this point. While the rest have found that which was placed with the intention of being a permanent reminder of our status can be difficult to remove.”

“Do you want me to try and remove yours?” Eventus offered, having always liked the older Jaffa.

Bra’tac stared quietly at him for several moments before giving a reluctant shake of his head. “A tempting offer, but what kind of leader would I be to my people if I accepted such before the choice was available to all.”

“One without your wisdom I suppose.” Eventus acknowledged, feeling slightly guilty for making the offer now. 

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Author’s Notes: Meanwhile, Bra’tac now believes Eventus was pulling a morality test on him. Something that would make Eventus facepalm if he knew given how he always thought those kinds of indirect morality tests were kind of stupid. But hey, at least it does the whole wise old ancient legend some good.