Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 143

Chapter 143 - Ancestors and Gods - Part 2

O'Neill stared at Eventus for a moment before rolling his eyes. “Oh I don't know, steal technology for Ba'al. Take over the bodies of our top scientists. Take over the bodies of your people and use them to take over the city. Or hell, maybe even try to blow up the city for spite.”

Eventus held up a hand and began counting off fingers. “Nothing she could steal would be reproducible without a molecular synthesizer. The city has multiple systems which would catch if she jumped hosts, at which point our medical technology would guarantee her safe removal from whoever she jumped into. Parasite body jacking is covered by pretty much every digital security layer we have. And with the city's central core fully active the only way to blow up the city would be to pull the power, something that's relatively easy to stop by locking down the core platform.”

“What about overloading one of our Naquadah generators?” Weir asked with a frown.

“The city would automatically project a shield bubble around it safely containing the explosion.” Eventus explained. “In theory the system could even protect against one of those mark nines you're working on.”

Though at those levels at would probably have to allow the energy to discharge along the least damaging exit path instead of fully containing it.

“How do you know about those?” O'Neill demanded unhappily.

“McKay's computer.” Eventus answered simply. “He was collaborating on the design with Carter before he left to Pegasus so those early design documents were still on his laptop.”

“Which reminds me.” He continued, looking hopefully over at O'Neill. “Is there any chance I could get a copy of those Naquadria synthesis files you picked up from Kelowna? Because we'd been trying to narrow down an island of stability for a material like that for thousands of years.”

He grimaced and looked away. “Our well, we had been until attempted synthesis of those sorts of materials was banned due to one too many planets exploding.”

Realistically speaking one of his people had probably used the breakdown of their government to continue down that particular branch of forbidden research. Which to be fair had basically been Eventus's plan upon returning to Avalon too, so he wasn't going to judge anyone for the choice outside of Janus and his insanity.

“I'm going to say no.” O'Neill said dryly.

“Putting the various dangers aside for a moment.” Weir digressed, glancing briefly at O'Neill before focusing back on Eventus. “General O'Neill's message mentioned you were going to put her on trial?”

“She made a very specific diplomatic request for judgement and sanctuary.” Eventus told her. “And while I don't know how she learned enough about our laws to make that specific request, it's not one I can ignore given the very real genocide being committed against the Goa’uld.”

“They're Goa'uld.” O'Neill slowly enunciated as if he couldn't quite believe Eventus's objection to that.

“And?” Eventus asked, raising an eyebrow in challenge at the man. “The Tok'ra were Goa'uld and they turned away from that way of thinking. Kianna Cyr was a Goa'uld and she sacrificed her life after falling in love with Jonas Quinn. And didn't McKay have an affair with a Goa'uld by the name of Zirstyr at that secret offworld base of yours?”

Weir's shoulders slumped and she let out a tired sigh. “I'm pretty sure that last was just Rodney's wistful thinking.”

“The Goa'uld? The secret off-world base? Or the affair?” Eventus listed out uncertainly, since the scientist's notes had been the only real source he'd found for all three of those things.

“The affair.” Weir deadpanned.

“Oh, Zistyr was absolutely cheating on old Wepwawet.” Vala added in with a wry grin. “She utterly despised the man and only married him in the first place because he forced her into the arrangement at staffpoint.”

Eventus frowned as that brought to mind several questions he’d had about the way the Goa’uld society worked. “And she didn’t stab or poison him in bed? Because my people recorded a lot of feudal dictatorships over the millennia, and all the even moderately successful leaders tended to be careful with how far they pushed things when it came to their husbands or wives.”

Vala gave a non-committal shrug. “You’d have to ask Zistyr if she’s still around, but given the last Qetesh heard she had jumped hosts and was running for her life, that’s probably what ended up happening.”

“Always weird to imagine Goa’uld with human marriage problems.” O’Neill muttered, shaking his head in bemusement.

Clasping her hands together, Weir took a breath before slowly exhaling. “Yes, well, leaving the question of Rodney’s fanciful exploits for later, I understand the point you’re trying to make.” She turned a reproachful stare on O’Neill. “And agree that we shouldn’t judge all Goa’uld by the actions of the System Lords. However she’s already admitted to working for Ba’al, infiltrating Earth, and committing what would very likely amount to a truly staggering number of crimes if we were to actually work them all out.”

“Yes.” Eventus nodded in agreement, seeing no reason to argue against the obvious history of Yami's already admitted actions. “Her guilt is all but assured. And the judgement will weigh her life to decide what level of restitution is needed and how her rehabilitation should be approached.”

“Restitution?” Daniel asked.

“Usually comes in the form of community service to make up for the damage caused by their crimes.” Eventus explained, having briefly considered the legal profession as an option before learning just how dull and straightforward his people’s way of doing things was compared to the humans.

O’Neill drummed his fingers on the table for a moment before seemingly deciding something. “I’m gonna guess your people’s idea of community service is radically different from ours?”

“In general it includes anything which can be thought of as serving the community.” Eventus confirmed. “Functionally however it tended towards things like assisting in disaster recovery, helping with planetary development, and volunteering as a test subject.”

Ignoring the odd looks the four were now giving him, he went on. “For Yami, unless we discover something particularly damning. I’m currently leaning towards having her start on restitution by transcribing as much of her and her genetic line’s history as she can remember.”

Daniel opened his mouth to say something only to immediately shut it as he noticed the glare O’Neill was shooting him.

“You know she’ll probably just lie, right?” The General asked.

Eventus tilted his head, working through the oddity of that suggestion for a second before realization hit. “I don’t mean I will ask her to transcribe what she remembers onto paper or into a computer. I mean I will have a memory reader transcribe as much as she can remember into an accessible life codex.”

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Author’s Notes: Welp, Daniel’s probably going to need a new pair of panties after this. Assuming he's weaing any of course.

Jokes aside, we know from Merlin that recording memories like that was actually a thing the Ancient could do. Though a Life Codex is less that and more sort of a “you can virtually experience a person's memories as they occurred to them” sort of thing that is then often summarized into a readable format by a computer.