If things had gone as originally, Professor Tomoe would have gone on to work out a tanstaffel universe principle and contact a being known as Pharoah 90.
Instead, Professor Tomoe had been contacted by the US Government as a world expert on para-dimensional theory and space-folds. He had been working towards a new theory of hyperspace but running into major funding problems. He had joined a few months before a guy named Daniel Jackson was brought in, and a little adventure had ended up in a place called Abydos.
Professor Tomoe had been happily working out theories of gravitational toroids and how it might be possible to construct "oomphing big" toroidal black hole generators in space and connect to other places in the galaxy. He was Japanese, as was his daughter, but he saw the project as having value to the species as a whole. Then the attack by Apophis. He'd been reunited with Daniel Jackson briefly, gone with SG-2 into this "Chulak" world and been captured.
SG-1 went through nearly identical paths that they would have despite the presence of the Tomoe family. They'd gotten back with Teal'c and met two people that Professor Tomoe had written into his original contract as Emergency Contact people.
Had things gone as they originally would have, Stargate Command would have faced major financial difficulties and eventually faced shut down for no return on the investment.
Things were taking a major divergence right now...
"We'll find a way to get it out of her," said Doctor Janet Fraiser to Professor Daniel Jackson.
"It's just so hard seeing her like this," said Daniel, looking into the isolation cell where the former Sha're was pacing back and forth like some recently caged wild beast.
"It's a chance, it's better than we would have without her," pointed out the doctor.
"...really, we just don't see any possibility of further funding, General," said the Colonel as the elevator went down. "Not unless you run across something we can use."
General Hammond had been around for quite some time. He could avoid smirking. "Is that so?"
"Yes, there is Senator Kinsey and he's becoming quite a..." The elevator doors opened. "what the hell?"
"We got lucky. Can't count on it happening again so we want to make full use of the opportunity. Oh that's a 'Death Glider' we're assembling from pieces, that's a weapons cache - hardly ever been used, that's a few other bits and pieces we've scavenged from Chulak," answered General Hammond. "I believe you can see why we want to 'farm out' to other research installations some of this. We're frankly overwhelmed as it is. Oh, and you might want to close your mouth, Colonel."
"You will get nothing from me! I am loyal only to mighty Apophis!"
The interrogators looked at each other, shrugged, looked back at this three-man group of captives and seemed to consider that briefly. "Okay."
"If you surrender now, Apophis will make your suffering brief," counseled a second of the Jaffa.
"Oh no, we're going to let him take care of you," said one of the interrogators, smiling in a way that suggested that if he'd been playing poker - he was about to lay down a Royal Straight Flush.
"Whatever you..." the Jaffa's voice trailed off as he saw through the glass into the next room. "The Destroyer?"
Despite it being a fairly comfortable cool temperature, the interrogators saw a bright sheen of sweat develop on the three Jaffa. One of the interrogators smiled - it had been taking too long to try and do this one-on-one, but Teal'c had listened to some of the stories and come up with this idea. While gathering groups of Jaffa seemed to make them a bit more arrogant and confident, all it took was seeing the boy and/or the girl and a little story seemed to help.
"Apophis was killed by the First Prime Ranma of the goddess Hotaru," explained the lead interrogator. "Now if you're not willing to talk to us, maybe you can talk to the 'Destroyer's Wrath' there."
The three Jaffa began exhibiting the usual signs of nervousness. One swallowed a couple of times and wet his lips. "Maybe we could answer a few questions. That might be acceptable."
"(Aw man,)" complained Ranma with a scowl.
"Don't think of it as being under house arrest and with people ready to shoot you if you even look like you're about to do something else," said O'Neill. "Think of it as... being kind of..."
"(Yes?)" prompted Ranma after a silent moment.
"I'm still working on that," replied Jack.
"If you spent most of your life outdoors, are you having trouble adjusting to being underground?" asked Samantha Carter as she went through the folder they'd begun accumulating on the two Saotome.
"(Some)," admitted Ranma, not liking the closed-in feeling. He didn't like admitting it though, so his scowl increased deeply.
"Aghhh," said one of the Jaffa, seeing the Wrath getting angrier than he'd apparently been when he had ripped a Serpent Guard's helmet off, the helmet and buckles had remained intact but the flesh they'd connected to had not. All of the Jaffa who had seen that would have nightmares about it thereafter.
"He's getting up," said another Jaffa, turning pale despite his normally dark complexion.
"Can we make a deal?" asked the lead Jaffa hopefully of the interrogators.
"Sit back down, kid, stay on good behavior and you'll get together with your girlfriend again," said Jack, noting one of the interrogators in the next room was grinning. If they hadn't put in tape recorders they might have trouble jotting things down that quickly from the look of things.
"(It's hard,)" said Ranma, sitting back down and trying to look calmer. What was this 'girlfriend' bit anyway?
"Well?" asked General Hammond in the briefing room as the day came to a close.
"Hotaru, Ranma, and the Professor all check out as having no Goa'uld," said Doctor Frasier. "We have as yet no idea on how to remove the Goa'uld from Sha're or Skaara."
"There appears to be a sort of pecking order, or perhaps pack hierarchy within the Goa'uld," said Daniel thoughtfully. "With some exceptions, there seems to be a natural 'follow the leader' pack mentality among the lesser Goa'uld. Right now they kinda... respect Hotaru. Unfortunately Sha're and Skaara both were allowed close enough to Hotaru to determine she had no Goa'uld and therefore lost that respect before we realized that aspect. The Jaffa on the other hand, those who chose to follow Hotaru, don't seem to care so much about that."
"Their society worships strength and the strongest gets the most worship," translated Jack.
"When Ranma went on his 'steal everything he could' strategy to apparently buy his way back into our good graces," said Daniel with some hesitation, "apparently that was communicated to those who chose to follow him. Therefore we're still seeing people coming to the Stargate with 'offerings' scavenged from the site the Mothership went down in."
"According to Genma," said Professor Tomoe, "Hotaru has always had a monstrously powerful 'chi' - beyond anything he's ever seen in his life. I don't know where the costume or weapon came from, but it might explain the 'purple lightning' that was reported."
"Has she manifested either since then?" asked the General.
"No, nor does she apparently have an idea how she did it, only that when she needed to - she did," said the Professor. That he felt she was holding something back he decided the General didn't need to know right now. Things were dicey enough.
"One of the Chulak... Chulakians? Chulaki?" began Daniel.
"People of Chulak," prompted Jack.
"Right, one of them," continued Daniel, "she found some art supplies and did a painting that everyone agrees pretty much caught the image."
"Let's see it," said the General, curious.
An orderly brought it in, it was a fairly elaborate painting done on a easel. It was clearly not finished, some of the edges still not covered. It was detailed though and captured by someone with talent.
"A skating costume?" asked General Hammond. "What's the 'h' there?"
"One of them swears he saw it on her forehead just before transforming," said Daniel, wondering at the significance himself.
It was recognizably Hotaru, if you knew her well, but her presence was somehow magnified in the picture. Purple lightning danced around her, and a very sharp-looking polearm rested loosely in one hand. Despite the purple lightning and sharp weapon though, the other hand reached out as if towards the viewer, and the expression on the face was gentle.
"Don't fear the reaper," said Daniel.
"Excuse me?" said Jack, wondering if he'd heard that correctly.
"Something one of our people came up with, apparently it reminded him somehow of an old song by 'Blue Oyster Cult'. Maybe because of the weapon there and the predominantly black background. Everyone's just started calling the painting that - 'Don't Fear The Reaper'." Daniel shrugged.
"I don't think Hotaru has seen that yet, and what's with that short skirt?" complained Professor Tomoe. Though he thought it was accurate and if Hotaru ever was able to control this transformation - he'd request a longer skirt. And a less tight blouse.
Jack thought of something and smirk appeared on his face. "I want to see what Ranma does when he sees that."
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(Posted Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:56)
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