Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 9

Chapter 9 - Familiar Locations

“I always used to tell the others we should put the gates in areas of various planets with a more tropical bent.” Eventus offered to the four members of Atlantis Reconnaissance Team One as they trudged up the pathway to the castle that had been universally agreed was the best starting point for their search. “But they always wanted them in places with long term environmental stability so they didn't have to worry about the gate being buried by a lava flow or hurricane.”

“It sounds like a prudent precaution.” Teyla offered, so far the only member of the quartet who seemed willing to have a regular conversation with him.

“Oh, they weren't wrong.” Eventus groused, still more than a bit salty about the whole thing after all these years. “But it kills the wonder going from planet to planet and having everything appear generally the same.”

“Eh.” Shepherd added in with an acknowledging tilt of his head. “I'll admit the planets do get a little sameish after a while.”

Eventus threw his hands up in the air. “Thank you! I had an amazing plan for a planet design you know. Fiber optic plants that stored and released light, magnetically levitating islands that floated over the landscape, oceans this beautiful shade of aqua that actually sparkled at night due to harmless bioluminescent microbes.”

No blue cat people though, since he hadn't wanted to push his luck with that one. Of course, if that and his Elf proposal had gone through, he'd had a plan to try and combine them together to create a proper 'what the hell is this’ fantasy world for future generations of gate travelers to find.

“It sounds… Impressive.” Teyla said, her hesitancy clearly conveying to him that she didn’t know what to make of the idea of custom designing planets.

“It would have been.” Eventus agreed as he let out a sigh. “Unfortunately it was deemed infeasible due to the high Naquada requirements for the floating islands.”

“Which reminds me.” He continued as he paused in his walk and turned to Shepherd. “As a representative of my people, we’re moderately sorry about that.”

“Sorry about what?” Shepherd asked in sudden suspicion as he turned a cautious look to him.

“Your planetary system.” Eventus explained as he began walking again. “It was millions of years before I was born, but I looked over the reports. And we completely mined it bare of Naquada. Which must have made things really hard for you all technological progression wise.”

“Greeting party.” Ford announced as a pair of humans walked out from one of the semi-ruined structures. 

“I see em.” Shepherd confirmed as he and Ford positioned themselves defensively in front of the group. Nice of them to do given they had only known him for a little over a day, though Eventus did wonder if they would have still bothered doing so if they had been aware that he was protected by a personal shield. “Not seeing any obvious weapons though, so I’m guessing locals.”

“I really hope not.” Eventus muttered tiredly, having rather hoped they would be in and out before encountering that particular group. Though he supposed he shouldn’t have counted too heavily on that given he remembered they sometimes used the castle for a base camp.

“There something we should know about the locals?” Shepherd inquired in an annoyed tone as he kept his eyes on the slowly approaching pair.

“No, it's fine.” Eventus reassured the man with a wave, getting the distinct sense that he was operating in full professional soldier mode now. “Just potentially annoying for me given the Sudarians were at that awkward cultural point between worship and idolism.”

Shepherd visibly relaxed at that. “Well, just remember, if they ask whether or not you’re a god, say yes.”

“That feels like a reference to something.” Eventus muttered, well aware that the man had just quoted Ghostbusters at him.

“We’ll show you Ghostbusters when we get back.” Shepherd returned idly as Teyla walked past the pair of soldiers in a practiced manner and gave a welcoming wave to the man and woman who were now less than a couple dozen meters away. 

“Greetings!” She called out.

“And well met!” The moderately attractive dark haired woman returned in the same tone, suggesting it may have been a standardized greeting between travelers that had sprung up some time in the past ten thousand years.

“I am Teyla Emmagan.” She introduced herself.

“Allina Tor.” The woman returned with an uncertain smile as the man by her side gave the rest of them the same type of guarded look Eventus had seen Shephard give the pair themselves just moments earlier. “Forgive me for being cautious, but it’s rare to see people come from the direction of the ancestral ring.”

Something that Eventus knew his people would have found more than a little interesting given back in their day the Stargates had universally ended up centerpoints of civilization for those planets that possessed them. It was almost surely an attempt at culturally adapting to the Wraith occasionally popping out of the gates to eat people, though he doubted it was very effective outside of the occasional scouting flyby from whichever group was acting as caretaker while the others slept.

“We hail from the city of the ancestors.” Teyla explained, completely dashing his hopes that they could be circumspect about things. Not that he could really blame her since he knew she had latched onto the Atlantis expedition as the Pegasus Galaxies hope spot.

The pair exchanged a suspicious glance. 

“Do you have proof of this?” Allina inquired in a tone that all but screamed disbelief.

Which was completely fair, as even back when his people had actually been around there had been the occasional scam artist who had pretended to be one of them.

He was about to call back a couple of the drones from their current high altitude when McKay stepped forward and in a well practiced move flipped his tablet around to show a… Eventus leaned forward a bit to actually see, since humans had yet to perfect the screen that would be perfectly viable no matter the lighting angle… picture of all four of them posing on Atlantis's eastern pier with the city itself as a backdrop.

“Then you are here in search of the Quindosim.” Allina stated as her early caution vanished to be replaced by awe. “We had heard rumors that the ancestors had returned to the city.”

Eventus held up a finger. “Technically I never left.”

The confused looks the pair of natives gave at the admittance was worth the minor annoyance he suspected would result from directly informing them about his status. Well, barring one of them trying to crawl into bed with him, something he knew had occasionally happened to others who were out and about performing cultural studies.

“Anyways.” He continued as Shepherd shot him a dirty look. “We’re mostly just here to hunt down the Potentia my people left behind. Probably won’t take more than a day or two unless someone else grabbed it or they moved the thing a lot farther away from the gate then I think.”

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Author’s Notes: Alas, the Ancients obsession with practicality means the universe continues to be a much more boring place then it actually could be.