Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 75

Chapter 75 - Shop Talk

It had been a bit disappointing to learn that the various governments behind the IOA felt they needed a few days to figure out just how they wanted to go about trade negotiations. But it had also led to the rather interesting discovery when they had all eventually filed into the Quiet Room to find out what had delayed Shen, that the IOA representatives were a lot more willing to talk like normal people when they weren’t directly representing their countries.

“Which was when Ambassador Chou reappeared without his pants.” Chekov finished with a boisterous chuckle.

“He still claims that Supreme Commander Thor did it on purpose.” Shen added in, shaking her head in barely disguised mirth.

“He probably did.” Eventus put forward in amusement. “From everything I've read, Asgard can be really passive aggressive when it comes to returning insults.”

“From everything you've read?” Woolsey inquired, leaning forward slightly in obvious interest.

“We didn't really talk much by the time I was born.” Eventus explained with a shrug. “I'd like to think there was some deep and profound reason for that. But given we both had Stargates, I'm pretty sure it was something banal like both sides waiting for the other to dial up and apologize first.”

“Ha!” Chekov laughed. “Sounds like the us and the Americans in the eighties.”

“Don’t you mean the Soviets and Americans?” LaPierre put forward curtly.

“Bah.” Chekov waved off. “Close enough.”

“It sounds like you didn't have much respect for your previous leaders.” Sadru floated idly.

“Not especially.” Eventus confirmed, the memory of their many failures still fresh in his mind. “We only lost the war because they were supremely arrogant and more concerned with following precepts than they were with saving lives.”

“Precepts?” Shen asked.

“A living mind must be in control of any construction above a class two complexity.” Eventus quoted, wagging one of fingers in time to add sarcastic weight to his words. “In theory it was one of many precepts designed around the idea of preventing something like the Replicators from coming into existence.”

Frowning, he tilted his head in consideration for a moment.

“I really want to say those weren't our fault, but I have no real idea what my people got up to after leaving Pegausus.” He gave a lopsided grin. “Well, other than the previous High Councilor going around pretending to be a wizard for some reason.”

Woolsey shook his head bemusedly. “You'd be surprised at the number of politicians who have hobbies like that.”

“Da.” Chekov agreed with a nod. 

“Honestly?” Eventus mused as he considered what he knew about the man in question. “I think he just enjoyed the drama of it.”

Ganos Lal and Moros had been a lot alike on that front, which might have been why she had put her intangible foot forward to be the one to go after him for breaking the rules.

LaPierre gave him an odd look. “And you don’t?” 

Eventus let out a tired sigh as he thought over all the things he would have done if he’d actually made it back to Earth and gotten away from having to clean up the seemingly endless amount of messes his people had left in their wake.

“I’d like to say no, but given enough time on my own there’s a better than average chance I would have left at least one overly dramatic treasure hunt behind for future archeologists to stumble upon.”

And carved his name in Lantean on a moon just to fuck with people, but he didn’t think the people here would appreciate hearing about how defacing a celestial body had been on his bucket list.

Sadru hummed slightly to himself. “I suppose that sort of thing must be common to those with extended lifespans.”

“Eh.” Eventus said, making a so-so motion with one of his hands. “We tried to channel most of that towards theater productions. But yes, there was an inordinate amount of my people who enjoyed putting on dramatic airs in front of others.”

“While we’re on the subject.” LaPierre began, pausing for a moment to shoot a cautious glance over at Shen and Chekov. “Given the way your own government was run, I'm a bit surprised at your lack of objection to some of our own less democratic ways of doing things.”

From the scowls now being sent the French representatives way, the insinuation behind his words was clear enough that nobody in the room missed it. Personally, Eventus just found it kind of funny, and that must have shown at least somewhat on his face given the odd look Shen was now giving him.

“The only kind of government my people absolutely refused to deal with were Theocracies.” He offered with a shrug. “For everything else, it was really just a question of whether they were mind controlling their people or not.”

He grimaced before glancing at each of the representatives in turn. “Because trust me when I say that never ends well for anybody involved.”

Free will issues aside, evolution itself really didn’t seem to like mind control. Since in every planetary scale example they had documented, within a few generations of consistent use people who were either resistant or out right immune to whatever method used had started to appear within the populations.

Woolsey gave a wry grin. “Then it’s good we don’t have any of those here.”

“Wasn’t there that group of yours that got a bit out of control last year, Richard?” Chekov offered in an innocent tone that was moderately at odds with the calculating stare he was shooting the American representative.

“That was because of the Goa’uld.” Woolsey snapped definitely as he met Chekov’s stare.

An amusing thought popped into Eventus’s head at that, and he couldn’t help himself “Are there a lot of Goa’uld on Earth? Because from everything I’ve heard it seems like it would be relatively easy for one to take over a moderately rich businessman and just continue living their lifestyle.”

The representatives exchanged a number of uncomfortable glances between each other at his words, suggesting that particular concern wasn’t entirely new to them. 

“We certainly hope not.” Woolsey finally said. “But we don’t exactly have an easy way to go around discovering any that might be infiltrating in that manner.”

Standard Lantean hand scanners would likely be able to do the job once properly calibrated, but Eventus wasn’t going to mention that until he had a chance to have an in depth talk with the Tok’ra about the future of their species.

“I suppose I’ll just have to keep an eye out then.” Eventus returned, moderately hoping one actually tried something so he could grab a test subject to bring back to Atlantis for further study.

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Author’s Notes: The mad science runs deep, even if it’s in a more OSHA compliant package. I'd almost bad for the Goa'uld at what he truely has planned, but well, most of them deserve it.