Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 67

Chapter 67 - In The Beginning - Part 3

Daniel and O'Neill exchanged a brief glance at Eventus’s question before the General gave the Archeologist a nod to go ahead.

Reaching up towards his face before seeming to recall that Vala didn’t wear glasses, Daniel grabbed a pen from the table and fidgeted with it instead.

“I don’t get it.” He finally said. “Why go to all that trouble?”

A good question all things considered, and unfortunately one Eventus didn’t have a firm answer to since the only reason his people had given a second thought to the Ori was because the Ori themselves had tried to exterminate them.

“I honestly don’t know.” Eventus admitted with a shrug. “My best guess would be they were afraid we would come back some day to try and stop them from playing god. Which we almost surely never would have actually done given how legendarily irresponsible my people were when it came to cleaning up after ourselves.”

“Now though, they want to turn everyone in this galaxy that they can into batteries so they can kill the rest of the Ascended.”

The utterly lost look on Daniel’s borrowed face made the entire act of withholding that particular bit of information till now entirely worth it. “I’m sorry, what?” 

“Origin as a religion was set up to funnel the life force of its followers to the now ascended Ori.” Eventus explained. “Which they somehow use to increase their power on the upper dimensional planes. And to save you the question, no, I don't have any idea how that works.”

That wasn't entirely true of course, since he knew it had something to do with the Priors acting as a conduit for the life force. But investigating that would almost surely lead to them discovering the subspace link connecting the Priors together. And there was no way the Ori would give them more than a single chance to exploit that particular vulnerability.

“And the Others don't stop them?” Daniel inquired in confusion.

“Yeah.” O'Neill put forward. “Because that sounds pretty interfery.”

“I really don't know.” Eventus confessed, really wishing he could give them an actual answer. “I'm not Ascended, and the last one I talked to just gave me a woefully vague warning that culminated in a silent ten minute long staring contest.”

“Did you win?” O'Neill asked curiously.

Eventus sadly shook his head. “I blinked, and she took the chance to vanish mysteriously.”

Letting out a snort of barely repressed laughter, O'Neill turned an amused look to the currently lost in thought Archaeologist. “Yeah, Daniel liked to do that too when he was ascended.” 

“Hmm? What?” Daniel inquired as he regained focus. “Sorry, I was just thinking of something Oma once told me about how the only thing we can truly control in life is whether we are good or evil.”

A suspiciously specific proverb all things considered, and it left Eventus wondering if Daniel had realized the easiest solution for dealing with the Ori as a threat would be to kill the people they drew power from.

“Evil triumphs when good stays its hand, Daniel Jackson. The only way to defeat the Ori at this point is to show they aren’t the gods they portray themselves as. And the only way to do that is by destroying the illusion of supreme power they have built around themselves.”

Eventus gave an acknowledging half-nod as he recalled another possibility. “Or some form of galaxy wide mind control, but even if that wasn’t morally reprehensible, I’m not sure how well it would work with the Ori themselves able to step in and stop it.”

Given how things had gone in the abbreviated future he’d seen, Eventus would bet good money that at least one Ascended Ancient had sacrificed themselves to hide Merlin’s weapon from the Ori during those final few seconds before it had gone off.

“Anyways.” He continued, clapping his hands together and offering everyone in the room a genial grin. “That’s why I’m giving you weapons that are such ridiculous overkill that there’s not much they can’t kill.”

They would even theoretically punch through personal shields, which was why they had an IFF system that would prevent them from being fired at him or any other Lanteans.

“About those.” O’Neill began with a grimace. “Not that we don’t appreciate the space guns, but we can’t send our people out with weapons that we don’t know anything about.”

“Sheppard said as much.” Eventus admitted, letting out a sigh as it was the man wouldn’t be happy with what he was going to say next. “And I’ll be happy to do so if you’ll turn off the recorder and excuse Mister Jackson and Teal’c from the room.”

“I have no problem with that.” O’Neill offered after a moment.

“Indeed.” Teal’c stated as he languidly rose to his feet. “I have heard all that I need to confirm to my people that the Ori are no better than the Goa’uld.”

“I’d guess significantly worse.” Eventus added in. “Draining the life force from people like the Ori do shortens those people’s lifespan and in theory makes it harder for them to eventually ascend.”

Which the Ori likely just considered a bonus given part of their goal was being the only Ascended beings around.

“And don’t worry.” He offered to Daniel as the contemplative Archeologist followed his friend’s lead. “I’ll take a look at the device that switched you and Vala after this.”

With a nod the two left the room, and as the door closed General O’Neill reached over to the microphone and flicked the switch to turn it off. “Sorry in advance about all the questions Daniel’s going to be asking you after this.”

Eventus waved off his preemptive apology. “It’s fine, I actually enjoy having others to talk to while I work.”

He got up and walked over to pour himself a glass of water from a nearby pitcher before returning to his chair.

“There are basic user manuals for everything I brought that will provide step by step use and maintenance instructions. I also included blueprints for inductions plates that can be used to recharge the crystal power cells. So I’ll get to explaining the weapons themselves.”

“The big one is a Nullray, as its name suggests it nullifies the basic fundamental forces functionally erasing most types of energy and matter that intersect its beam from existence. And before you ask, no it can’t affect ascended beings, or really anything that exists independent of gravity, electromagnetism, or the nuclear forces.”

Something that would probably have gotten him in a lot of trouble for building given all the collateral damage that could ensue from the weapon’s use.

“The rifles are Graviton weapons, they shoot packets of compressed gravitons that upon impact with a target momentarily generate a microsingularity with a one point seven inch diameter that compresses most types of matter caught within it into a high density grain of sand.”

That one would probably have been labeled as cruel and unusual given the high chance of survivability for anything outside of a head shot.

“The pistols are Destabilizer weapons, they’re the result of an unsuccessful attempt to weaponize the unstable vortex effect of a stargate.”

“Unsuccessful?” O’Neil repeated, shooting him a skeptical look.

“The weapon was supposed to discharge packets of unstable energy that would continue on for about two seconds before dissipating.“ Eventus explained with a shrug. “I was never able to get the containment field quite right however, and the packet breaks up into a directed fragmentary effect about a meter after it exits the discharge point. Even though the destabilized energy only continues to exist for a fraction of a second after the containment field fails, it still turned out to be hilariously lethal as a short ranged weapon.”

And as a bonus the scattershot effect would cut through most types of shielding without even noticing, so he had figured it would make a great short ranged weapon against the Ori’s priors when the time came.

“Last would be the four psionic nullifiers, they generate a roughly five meter radius field which–”

The sound of the base alarm going off interrupted him before he could finish, and O’Neill let out a recognizable sigh of overworked suffering before he slid his chair back and got to his feet. “I need to see what this is, we can finish this up after.”

With that he headed over to the door, pulling it open to exit before closing it behind him.

Shrugging to himself, Eventus grabbed an Orange from the fruit basket and used a minor manipulation of his personal shields surface geometry to perfectly slice the fruit and begin eating. 

Five minutes and a half devoured bunch of grapes later, the door opened just far enough for O’Neill to lean partially through with a complicated look on his face. “Did you order your elf to infiltrate the base?” 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author’s Notes: To be fair she only infiltrated a little of the base before being caught. But that's still a moderate embaressment all things considered.