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magibrainI wrote the hell out of myself over the last two weeks on an original project, and now my brain doesn't want to string words together any more. Fair 'nough. Time for more bits and bobs!
These are all from fics I either have plans for finishing or have dreams of being able to finish one day. Grand fun times!
.
1. The Mansions of the Dead (or) The Origin Story Of That Damn String Of Beads
Jack doesn't want to be back on P2X-338. He doesn't want to be anywhere near the place, in preoccupation, policy, or physical reality, but the Pentagon is none too happy about the loss of one potentially very interesting piece of alien technology, and the Russians are none too happy about the loss of one potentially very interesting piece of alien technology and three quarters of the team they sent out to secretly get it, and sending SG-1 back in to see if they can at least pick up some energy readings that might convince the SGC to send an engineering team back out to excavate the Eye is the least the Air Force can do.
Really. It's the least. It's a token gesture and the Russians know it, the Pentagon knows it, Hammond knows it, Jack knows it, and even Carter, who's been staring at her scanner since they stepped through the wormhole, knows it. Token. Pointless political posturing. There was only one thing on this planet of any interest or value, and they managed to blow it up the last time they were here.
...Jack just wishes someone'd made Daniel read the memo.
.
2. As The Ancient Mythmakers Knew (or) Jonas Discovers Sociology
"There was this Andari social philosopher who theorized that the most basic unit of any society wasn't an individual but a relationship," he said. "Which is a very Andari idea, honestly. He argued that same way we don't usually think of individual cells or organ systems in considering things like psychology, we shouldn't consider individuals in sociology. There's something markedly different between the interaction of a national leader and his nation and the qualities of that leader or nation themselves, see. He would have gotten a kick out of the SGC."
Sam could kinda follow that. As well as she could follow most of Daniel's topics, anyway, which probably said something in Jonas's theory, not that she knew what. "So you're cataloguing all the basic units that comprise SG-1."
Jonas jabbed the fork at her again. "Exactly."
She had to chuckle. "And this project is going well?"
"Oh, it's fascinating," he said. "It's this menagerie of reactive forces, each one unique and highly idiosyncratic."
He finished the bite he was on, reached for his lemonade, and grinned.
"I've named ours Benny."
.
3. With Quick Steps Over The Grass (or) The One About Language Until It's Really Really Not
Skaara had been devouring the English lessons Daniel had offered him, and Sha're seemed to pick up almost as much just from being in the house while Daniel conducted them, attending to her "woman's work" and slapping Daniel's hands away when he tried to help. He knew what he'd taught her, and what he'd taught Skaara, and as he was the only English-speaker left in the city, he was pretty sure he knew the amount of English that had made it through the entire populace. He was expecting Sha're to be singing a song in Abydonian, maybe another tale of the fall of Ra.
Instead he folded himself onto the mat beside her and recognized, after a few bars, the words and melody to Study War No More.
Gonna stick my sword in the golden sand,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside...
He waited until she looked over at him, and asked "Where did you learn that?" Somehow he couldn't see Colonel O'Neill or anyone on his team taking her aside and teaching her gospel songs.
"Things come," she said, smiling. "Through sleep. It was said that when Ra went below the horizon to fight Apep, Djehuty-holding-the-moon would whisper tales into the ears of the people to keep them from being afraid."
That was a twist on the legend he'd never heard before. "As an origin for dreams?" he asked.
"Dreams. Stories. Words." She leaned over, drawing him into a kiss before standing and walking to one of the mastages, who had a rock wedged in its hoof.
He paid more attention to his dreams, after that. Especially when they began to come in a rough, angry language, thick with obstruants and guttural vowels. And especially when, after a few months, they started coming in Abydonian.
.
4. In The Pale Moonlight (or) How Sam Accidentally Got Involved In Black Ops
"You are looking, Major, at the world's smallest dirty bomb."
Sam looked up, frowning. "General?"
"It's an implosion-type bomb in a travel-sized package," Colonel O'Neill said. "A hollow-point platinum bullet carrying a payload of elemental potassium and refined naqahdah, separated by about half a cubic centimeter of kerosene. Add in the stress lines on the casing, and–"
"–upon impact with a target, the bullet would crumple and the casing would rupture, exposing the naqahdah and potassium to each other and to oxygen, resulting in a nuclear reaction," she finished for him.
"Boom," the Colonel said. "Took us four years to develop. Considering the difficulty of manufacturing them in the first place, not to mention the number of times the prototypes decided to blow up on firing rather than on impact... well, let's just say there's a robotic testing range in the vicinity of Groom Lake that won't be open to human occupation for another few thousand years." He approached the display, giving the bullet a critical eye. "The labcoats wanted to christen it the 'Cassandra.' You'll be happy to know I nixed that."
"Very. Sir. Thank you," she said, with the vague displacement that said that she was going to have a double-take at that statement later but that right now, there were more important things. "If I may ask, how much of each element is contained in this bullet?"
Vidrine pulled a sheet of technical specifications out of his folder, and handed it over. Sam accepted it, scanned down for the relevant information, and did the calculations in her head.
Then she clamped her teeth down, specifically disallowed her eyes from going wide, and straightened. "If this saw anything like the conversion in the test we ran four years ago..."
Colonel O'Neill gave a small, grim smile. "This is a bullet we can fire into an al'kesh and stand a pretty good chance of cleaning it out," he said.
.
5. Fire and Calm (or) It Would Never Happen But It's So Fun To Imagine
Sleep frightened him at first. Perhaps it was because he knew that final sleep was approaching, the one from which he would never open his eyes; perhaps it was the theft of those precious hours he had used to spend in kel'no'reem, returning again and again to the center of himself to face the truths there. Bra'tac had heard it said – heard even Teal'c say it, seeming to echo the words of Daniel Jackson – that dreams could teach, that dreams were messages from that place hidden beneath the surface. But neither he nor Bra'tac had ever been accustomed to traveling there without control.
It made it even more important to meditate when he could.
Today was perhaps not a good day to do so. He had been running from the forces of Anubis, who still seemed incensed that the alliance between Tok'ra, Tau'ri and Jaffa had survived. There were not many ashrak in the galaxy, but there were enough to hunt down one old warrior. Pausing for a moment to reflect on his self and his mortality was perhaps inviting trouble. But giving up the tradition was just as much a form of death.
So Bra'tac settled down in the hollow of an old temple that had fallen into recline, on a world on which he had hidden many times in the last years, lit a small fire, and sat with his wrists on his knees. He closed his eyes, listening to the chorus of wind and insects and the soft scuffling of animal life in the undergrowth, and let himself each for a few small moments of enlightenment.
When he felt rested and his mind felt cleared, he opened his eyes to see an old man tending the fire.
A man he hadn't heard, despite his attention to the sounds of this world.
He reached for his staff weapon, but the man raised his hand. "Be at peace," he said, in the old, high language of Ra.
.
6. The Long Last Light Of Winter (or) In Which SG-1 Is Four Horrible People Who Make Each Other Good
Daniel didn't notice Jack washing his hands three metres upstream until thin, red ribbons began twining around his fingers.
He jerked his hands out of the water, frowning, and Sam appeared by his elbow just before he would have looked to see where the blood was coming from. She was scowling. But what she started scrubbing off her hands was only mud.
"You all right?" he asked, automatically, despite knowing that he wouldn't get an answer. Not a truthful one, anyway, and the lie she told him was exactly the lie he expected.
"It's nothing."
Right, Daniel thought, and glanced past her. That was when he saw Jack, kneeling by the stream in an almost identical pose, with an almost identical expression. His was darker. Not so sharp. Muted, Daniel tagged in the back of his mind – Jack was good at muting. Really, he was just good at sweeping things under the nearest metaphorical rug and ignoring them until they started to smell.
He looked back to Sam. "What happened?" he asked.
Sam had almost the opposite problem: even now, her anger was degrading by halflives, muddying into annoyance and disgust and something that looked suspiciously like exhaustion. "Nothing," she said again.
Daniel exhaled. Another question was on his lips, but no matter how many cultures imbued questioning three times with supernatural power, it never seemed to work on his friends. So instead of pressing, he stood up, laid a hand briefly on Sam's shoulder, and walked three meters upstream to crouch down again. "What did you do?"
.
Bonus! 7. Braintic: Anat Saga ; Schema: Hard Road ; Scene: The Shot Heard Round (or) The One Where It's Symptomatic Of A Much Bigger Problem
"You can't second-guess yourself," the Colonel said.
"I know." She nodded. "I just don't know – if it happened again, sir, I don't know that I'd do anything different," she tried.
"You acted appropriately, Major," he said. There was a note of censure to his tone.
The knot gave a sharp stab. If it happened again and I'd seen something different, I meant. For some reason, the words that matched the sentiment eluded her. He'd been right; she didn't go for lethal force. She knew it could become necessary, but she also knew that it often wasn't. Thing was, she'd felt threatened by the Alkari from the moment they met them, despite all evidence pointing to their being aloof and brusque but not assertively dangerous.
The thing was, one of them had to be acting against type. Either she pulled the trigger too fast, too eagerly, or the Alkari threatening Daniel had been the first one they'd met to take the slight edge of xenophobia, dominance posturing and diplomatic antagonism and escalate it to violence. None of the evidence would tell them which.
"He could have easily just wanted Daniel not to move. Or, like Daniel said, he was trying to make a point."
The Colonel reached out, and she caught herself wanting to flinch back and forced those muscles to relax. His hand closed on her shoulder. For a moment she superimposed him in her vision: he was standing there, but there was another figure, across a room, reaching toward her. Pointing something toward her. She stopped her breath, and the double-vision disappeared.
"You acted appropriately," the Colonel said. "Let it go."
These are all from fics I either have plans for finishing or have dreams of being able to finish one day. Grand fun times!
.
1. The Mansions of the Dead (or) The Origin Story Of That Damn String Of Beads
Jack doesn't want to be back on P2X-338. He doesn't want to be anywhere near the place, in preoccupation, policy, or physical reality, but the Pentagon is none too happy about the loss of one potentially very interesting piece of alien technology, and the Russians are none too happy about the loss of one potentially very interesting piece of alien technology and three quarters of the team they sent out to secretly get it, and sending SG-1 back in to see if they can at least pick up some energy readings that might convince the SGC to send an engineering team back out to excavate the Eye is the least the Air Force can do.
Really. It's the least. It's a token gesture and the Russians know it, the Pentagon knows it, Hammond knows it, Jack knows it, and even Carter, who's been staring at her scanner since they stepped through the wormhole, knows it. Token. Pointless political posturing. There was only one thing on this planet of any interest or value, and they managed to blow it up the last time they were here.
...Jack just wishes someone'd made Daniel read the memo.
.
2. As The Ancient Mythmakers Knew (or) Jonas Discovers Sociology
"There was this Andari social philosopher who theorized that the most basic unit of any society wasn't an individual but a relationship," he said. "Which is a very Andari idea, honestly. He argued that same way we don't usually think of individual cells or organ systems in considering things like psychology, we shouldn't consider individuals in sociology. There's something markedly different between the interaction of a national leader and his nation and the qualities of that leader or nation themselves, see. He would have gotten a kick out of the SGC."
Sam could kinda follow that. As well as she could follow most of Daniel's topics, anyway, which probably said something in Jonas's theory, not that she knew what. "So you're cataloguing all the basic units that comprise SG-1."
Jonas jabbed the fork at her again. "Exactly."
She had to chuckle. "And this project is going well?"
"Oh, it's fascinating," he said. "It's this menagerie of reactive forces, each one unique and highly idiosyncratic."
He finished the bite he was on, reached for his lemonade, and grinned.
"I've named ours Benny."
.
3. With Quick Steps Over The Grass (or) The One About Language Until It's Really Really Not
Skaara had been devouring the English lessons Daniel had offered him, and Sha're seemed to pick up almost as much just from being in the house while Daniel conducted them, attending to her "woman's work" and slapping Daniel's hands away when he tried to help. He knew what he'd taught her, and what he'd taught Skaara, and as he was the only English-speaker left in the city, he was pretty sure he knew the amount of English that had made it through the entire populace. He was expecting Sha're to be singing a song in Abydonian, maybe another tale of the fall of Ra.
Instead he folded himself onto the mat beside her and recognized, after a few bars, the words and melody to Study War No More.
Gonna stick my sword in the golden sand,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside...
He waited until she looked over at him, and asked "Where did you learn that?" Somehow he couldn't see Colonel O'Neill or anyone on his team taking her aside and teaching her gospel songs.
"Things come," she said, smiling. "Through sleep. It was said that when Ra went below the horizon to fight Apep, Djehuty-holding-the-moon would whisper tales into the ears of the people to keep them from being afraid."
That was a twist on the legend he'd never heard before. "As an origin for dreams?" he asked.
"Dreams. Stories. Words." She leaned over, drawing him into a kiss before standing and walking to one of the mastages, who had a rock wedged in its hoof.
He paid more attention to his dreams, after that. Especially when they began to come in a rough, angry language, thick with obstruants and guttural vowels. And especially when, after a few months, they started coming in Abydonian.
.
4. In The Pale Moonlight (or) How Sam Accidentally Got Involved In Black Ops
"You are looking, Major, at the world's smallest dirty bomb."
Sam looked up, frowning. "General?"
"It's an implosion-type bomb in a travel-sized package," Colonel O'Neill said. "A hollow-point platinum bullet carrying a payload of elemental potassium and refined naqahdah, separated by about half a cubic centimeter of kerosene. Add in the stress lines on the casing, and–"
"–upon impact with a target, the bullet would crumple and the casing would rupture, exposing the naqahdah and potassium to each other and to oxygen, resulting in a nuclear reaction," she finished for him.
"Boom," the Colonel said. "Took us four years to develop. Considering the difficulty of manufacturing them in the first place, not to mention the number of times the prototypes decided to blow up on firing rather than on impact... well, let's just say there's a robotic testing range in the vicinity of Groom Lake that won't be open to human occupation for another few thousand years." He approached the display, giving the bullet a critical eye. "The labcoats wanted to christen it the 'Cassandra.' You'll be happy to know I nixed that."
"Very. Sir. Thank you," she said, with the vague displacement that said that she was going to have a double-take at that statement later but that right now, there were more important things. "If I may ask, how much of each element is contained in this bullet?"
Vidrine pulled a sheet of technical specifications out of his folder, and handed it over. Sam accepted it, scanned down for the relevant information, and did the calculations in her head.
Then she clamped her teeth down, specifically disallowed her eyes from going wide, and straightened. "If this saw anything like the conversion in the test we ran four years ago..."
Colonel O'Neill gave a small, grim smile. "This is a bullet we can fire into an al'kesh and stand a pretty good chance of cleaning it out," he said.
.
5. Fire and Calm (or) It Would Never Happen But It's So Fun To Imagine
Sleep frightened him at first. Perhaps it was because he knew that final sleep was approaching, the one from which he would never open his eyes; perhaps it was the theft of those precious hours he had used to spend in kel'no'reem, returning again and again to the center of himself to face the truths there. Bra'tac had heard it said – heard even Teal'c say it, seeming to echo the words of Daniel Jackson – that dreams could teach, that dreams were messages from that place hidden beneath the surface. But neither he nor Bra'tac had ever been accustomed to traveling there without control.
It made it even more important to meditate when he could.
Today was perhaps not a good day to do so. He had been running from the forces of Anubis, who still seemed incensed that the alliance between Tok'ra, Tau'ri and Jaffa had survived. There were not many ashrak in the galaxy, but there were enough to hunt down one old warrior. Pausing for a moment to reflect on his self and his mortality was perhaps inviting trouble. But giving up the tradition was just as much a form of death.
So Bra'tac settled down in the hollow of an old temple that had fallen into recline, on a world on which he had hidden many times in the last years, lit a small fire, and sat with his wrists on his knees. He closed his eyes, listening to the chorus of wind and insects and the soft scuffling of animal life in the undergrowth, and let himself each for a few small moments of enlightenment.
When he felt rested and his mind felt cleared, he opened his eyes to see an old man tending the fire.
A man he hadn't heard, despite his attention to the sounds of this world.
He reached for his staff weapon, but the man raised his hand. "Be at peace," he said, in the old, high language of Ra.
.
6. The Long Last Light Of Winter (or) In Which SG-1 Is Four Horrible People Who Make Each Other Good
Daniel didn't notice Jack washing his hands three metres upstream until thin, red ribbons began twining around his fingers.
He jerked his hands out of the water, frowning, and Sam appeared by his elbow just before he would have looked to see where the blood was coming from. She was scowling. But what she started scrubbing off her hands was only mud.
"You all right?" he asked, automatically, despite knowing that he wouldn't get an answer. Not a truthful one, anyway, and the lie she told him was exactly the lie he expected.
"It's nothing."
Right, Daniel thought, and glanced past her. That was when he saw Jack, kneeling by the stream in an almost identical pose, with an almost identical expression. His was darker. Not so sharp. Muted, Daniel tagged in the back of his mind – Jack was good at muting. Really, he was just good at sweeping things under the nearest metaphorical rug and ignoring them until they started to smell.
He looked back to Sam. "What happened?" he asked.
Sam had almost the opposite problem: even now, her anger was degrading by halflives, muddying into annoyance and disgust and something that looked suspiciously like exhaustion. "Nothing," she said again.
Daniel exhaled. Another question was on his lips, but no matter how many cultures imbued questioning three times with supernatural power, it never seemed to work on his friends. So instead of pressing, he stood up, laid a hand briefly on Sam's shoulder, and walked three meters upstream to crouch down again. "What did you do?"
.
Bonus! 7. Braintic: Anat Saga ; Schema: Hard Road ; Scene: The Shot Heard Round (or) The One Where It's Symptomatic Of A Much Bigger Problem
"You can't second-guess yourself," the Colonel said.
"I know." She nodded. "I just don't know – if it happened again, sir, I don't know that I'd do anything different," she tried.
"You acted appropriately, Major," he said. There was a note of censure to his tone.
The knot gave a sharp stab. If it happened again and I'd seen something different, I meant. For some reason, the words that matched the sentiment eluded her. He'd been right; she didn't go for lethal force. She knew it could become necessary, but she also knew that it often wasn't. Thing was, she'd felt threatened by the Alkari from the moment they met them, despite all evidence pointing to their being aloof and brusque but not assertively dangerous.
The thing was, one of them had to be acting against type. Either she pulled the trigger too fast, too eagerly, or the Alkari threatening Daniel had been the first one they'd met to take the slight edge of xenophobia, dominance posturing and diplomatic antagonism and escalate it to violence. None of the evidence would tell them which.
"He could have easily just wanted Daniel not to move. Or, like Daniel said, he was trying to make a point."
The Colonel reached out, and she caught herself wanting to flinch back and forced those muscles to relax. His hand closed on her shoulder. For a moment she superimposed him in her vision: he was standing there, but there was another figure, across a room, reaching toward her. Pointing something toward her. She stopped her breath, and the double-vision disappeared.
"You acted appropriately," the Colonel said. "Let it go."
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 10:12 am (UTC)I liked all of these - your random braintics do seem to hint at something grander lurking just under the surface. Love Daniel being oblivious and your Jonas is darling. LOVE your Sha're picking up Daniel's sleeptalking and oooh, is Daniel somehow having premonitions of Goa'uld, or did you mean something else? Am kinda glad that the "Cassandra" (I mean, OW) is being developed for off-world rather than Tau'ri warfare, as I first assumed.
I love the weaving of Teal'c's thoughts and what he fears about the randomness of dreams. Should I recognize the old man that he meets?
And those last two - yes, Sam needs a hug. She should get more of 'em. The gen kind, natch. ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 12:01 pm (UTC)So far as I know, Sam never gets a middle name in canon. I just like "Grace" for a few reasons: it gives the kid in Grace a reason to be named that, it seems like it could be a trace of Sam's mother snarkily pushing back against her father "wanting a boy", and it makes her initials SGC.
...if we're honest, that last reason is probably the reason that got it cemented in my head.
With Quick Steps Over The Grass is the fic I have that aims to actually explain why the hell everyone in the galaxy speaks English. That was a bit from the middle of the prelude chapter; the rest of the chapter expands it through to when Teal'c is first brought to the SGC, and you have no idea how tempted I was to quote the entire thing.
I have to imagine there were some scientists in Moonlight who thought they were really, really clever until Jack put the fear of God into them. <_< I mean, honestly, guys, that's just really not on.
Fire and Calm is actually Bra'tac, which... should probably be made clearer, but I was having issues getting a first line that both scanned well and established that. And the old man becomes significantly more recognizable. ;)
Sam needs all the genhugs. Especially with the crap the magibrain pulls on her in her unenviable position as its current favorite character. (The Anat/Hard Road saga is kinda odd in subverting that and giving her the most traumatic pile of (gen) OT4 ever, followed later on by the most adorable torture scene ever, in which she and Jack basically manage to bluff their way out of interrogation by quoting an Abbott and Costello routine. And then stage a daring escape while still tied up back-to-back. After a while, I just stop asking.)
...
You know what? Have the rest of the establishing bit for With Quick Steps, through to the end:
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 12:14 pm (UTC)Your brain is truly an AWESOME place. :D :D
I love what you're exploring in With Quick Steps. What a fascinating postulate. And it sort of leads back in a very straggling circle to what your Teal'c struggles with once he's on tretonin and the lack of kel no reem, and yeah, I want more of this. When the magibrain cooperates, natch.
And hey, if you're in the mood for writing snippets (not these, I mean), there's always the
no subject
Date: 2011-09-01 02:07 pm (UTC)With Quick Steps is the sort of story that's just a totally Daniel story, for all that it's an ensemble piece and Teal'c is the one quietly pwning all of SG-1 and an entire alien political structure. The entire thing is hung on language, culture, and sociology. (I think Daniel and Teal'c are the only ones who have any luck in navigating the alien culture they're thrown into, to. Though the culture has a lot of luck navigating them.)
I really want to write that one. Now if only I knew all the plot events and the order they went in.
.
I actually do have that third fic I was working on for the friendathon... about 85% complete? Except it decided to get epic and require multiple scenes and make me focus on things like pacing and escalation. I'm not sure whether to blame Sam or Sha're, but it's definitely one of them. ...I suppose nothing says it couldn't be both.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 03:39 am (UTC)Especially intrigued by #6 (because if you have to go dark, then take the whole damn 'verse with you *grin*), and, surprisingly enough, #2, even though Jonas has never...ever been on my favorite people list.
I love the approach you've taken to Sg1 in both of these, in #2 showing us a way to see SG1 fromt he "outsider" macro/micro perspective , and in #6 taking the view of them as all too fallible and human (they made huge...horrendous mistakes, and people tend to forget they are Human).
Please go on!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 05:17 am (UTC)Especially because with a lot of people – Jack, I think, especially, at least in my conception of him – those dark sides can be a strength as well as a danger.
Hee. I really liked Jonas, because him and his puppyish curiosity and his picking apart of everything and his freakish eidetic memory meant SG-1 could do funky mystery plots which they'd never been able to do before. I wish he'd been able to stick around through S7 and really get to a point where he wasn't being treated as a stand-in for Daniel 'cause they needed a new character while Shanks was away, and rather got to shine with his own strengths and idiosyncrasies and the like.