Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 65

Chapter 65 - In The Beginning - Part 1

For all its fame Stargate Command wasn't really that visually impressive of a location. Completely understandable of course given the bunker had been built by humans in the 1950s, but Eventus still found himself wondering why in all the years of the Stargate program they hadn't gone through the effort to spruce the place up a little.

At General Landry's request he had parked the jumper a dozen levels above the gate room. Whereupon he had locked down the controls, waved goodbye to McKay and Sheppard, and then followed a quartet of armed dress blue wearing marines to the conference room where Teal'c was sitting patiently in wait with a fruit basket.

“For me?” Eventus asked as he eyed one of the perfectly ripe looking plums.

“Indeed.” Teal'c confirmed with a nod. “General O'Neill believed it the least he could do given the assistance you have been providing.”

The General probably didn't expect Eventus to understand the sentiment behind it, but he distinctly recalled the running joke about SG1 saving the galaxy and never even getting a fruit basket for their troubles.

“Don't mind if I do then.” He said as he grabbed a plum and plastic knife before taking a seat across from the Jaffa.

“So.” He put forward idly as he began slicing the fruit. “Are you my guard?”

“No.” Teal'c returned simply as he focused his gaze on Eventus. “I am here as a diplomatic representative of the Free Jaffa Nation.”

That was more than a little surprising, but Eventus supposed it made at least some sense given how rudderless he remembered the Jaffa being after overthrowing the Goa'uld.

Popping a slice of plum into his mouth, Eventus took a moment to consider the stoic man as he enjoyed the taste of the slightly tart fruit before coming to a decision. “Any meaning of life questions you want to ask while we wait for everyone else to show up?”

“Is it true that your people believed in reincarnation?” Teal'c inquired after considering the question for a moment.

“Technically we proved it.” Eventus admitted. “There was this whole ongoing attempt to try and figure out where souls go after death whose only real result ended up being a database of unique soul signatures and the discovery that eventually those signatures showed up again in new people.”

He ate another slice of plum before continuing. “If you lost someone and are thinking of trying to hunt down their reincarnation though, I'll warn you that the few successes I know of have never ended in anything but tragedy. Part of the soul's journey is figuring itself out, and it doesn't really do that by being the same person.”

That last was less empirical fact and more a general belief that had been held by some of the more spiritual minded members of his people, but he figured Teal'c would likely appreciate hearing it.

“I was not considering it.” Teal'c said simply. 

Ten minutes and a banana later General O'Neill walked in, Daniel, still in Vala's body and oddly well dressed in a black woman's pants suit, following close on his heels.

“Sorry about the wait.” O'Neill said as he pulled out a chair and plopped down into it. “The IOA was arguing over how they were going to handle meeting with you about all the non-Ori related issues.”

“It's fine.” Eventus told him, well aware of just how bad Earth politicians could be about coming to quick decisions. “Gave me some time to enjoy the fruit basket.”

“Doctor Jackson.” He greeted the Archaeologist with a nod as they took a seat next to O'Neill. “I appreciate the sentiment, but you really didn't need to dress up given the circumstances.”

Not that Vala's body didn't wear it well, but Eventus hated to think of the amount of trouble it must have taken to get her fitted for a suit in less then a day.

“It's protocol when meeting foreign heads of state.” Daniel groused, tugging slightly on the lapel of their suit to adjust the way it was sitting on their shoulders.

“Vala Maldoran spent several hours having him change between outfits.” Teal’c offered with a hint of amusement in his voice. 

That made it sound distinctly like Vala had played dress up with Daniel, something Eventus could easily imagine given everything he remembered about the woman.

“Should I begin the full breakdown now?” He asked, looking over to the still open door in bemusement since he had really expected there to be a bit more interest in the invasion of religious fanatics. “Or are we still waiting for others to arrive?”

“Just us today.” O'Neill said, motioning for one of the marines standing outside to shut the door. “General Landry's busy handling things with Doctor Weir's people and the Tok'ra, Nox, and Asgard never responded to our RSVP.”

“I already warned Hermiod about the Ori.” Eventus admitted with a shrug. “So I assume he sent that information back to his people.” He frowned slightly at the memory. “Though I’m pretty sure he was more than a little annoyed that there was yet another unmentioned danger from our past about to show up and try to kill everyone.”

O’Neill exchanged a brief glance with Daniel before shaking his head in bemusement. “You know, I get that.”

“Indeed.” Teal’c agreed.

“Okay then.” Eventus began, not really begrudging them the complaint given his centuries of dealing with similar. “Since we’re not limited by Stargate power draw I’m guessing you would like me to start from the beginning?”

Leaning back in his chair O’Neill gave a nod. “We’d appreciate it.”

“Jack.” Daniel interjected, indicating to one of the microphones with a jerk of their head.

“Oh right.” O’Neill muttered, shooting Eventus an apologetic look. “You don’t mind if we record this, right?”

“It’s all right with me.” Eventus confirmed, glad they were since it suggested he’d only be expected to repeat the story a few times instead of hundreds or more. 

Daniel gave a relieved smile, reaching across the table to flip a switch under the mic before giving Eventus a nod.

“So.” He continued, his lips twitching slightly as an amusing thought suddenly hit. “In the beginning, an unknown occurrence in the upper dimensional realms propagated outwards to birth the universe. This resulted in–”

“Er.” O’Neill suddenly interrupted, visibly cringing in a way that suggested he’d experienced something similar at least once before. “Maybe not that far in the beginning.” He held up a forestalling hand towards the actually interested looking Daniel who looked to be about to object. “How about just the beginning of the whole Ori thing?”

Eventus nodded. “I’m going to have to preface things on that front by stating all of what I’m about to tell you happened around a hundred million of your years ago. And due to a number of compounding situations over the millennia even our records are patchwork at best when it comes to things that happened that far back.”

The Ori plague and Wraith war hadn’t been the only disasters to strike his people in the past hundred million years after all, just the ones with the largest body count.

“Our original galaxy was old and extraordinarily barren compared to this one, a couple dozen naturally habitable worlds, scarce amounts of subspatial elements like Naquada, and absolutely no intelligent life other than our own. Being similar to you, none of those things stopped us from spreading out and slowly making the galaxy our own.”

“Travel between solar systems was slow back then, relying on a non-hyperspace type of faster than light drive that could take a ship years to go between colony worlds. This resulted in the formation of a government system that could roughly be likened to an Oligarchy with small groups of elites ruling over each separate world.”

“This system proved abusive, but due to the limits of faster than light travel and communications, unfortunately stable. Persisting for several thousand years before attempts by the ruling class to genetically improve themselves resulted in the verifiable proof of what your people’s fiction would call psychic powers.”

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Author’s Notes: And thus we begin the loredump. Or at least my version of it.