Gone A'Viking

Posted on Mon May 6th, 2019 @ 12:06am by Brigadier General Nathan Wolf & Major Jacob Asher & Master Sergeant Jamal Hassan & Technical Sergeant Anthony Mantelli & Staff Sergeant Rhiannon O'Connor & Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Corvus & Civillian Shae & Civillian Ravi Azad PhD & Civillian Selyna Braeden & 1st Lieutenant Hunter Williams

Mission: Mother Knows Best
Location: Conference Room
Timeline: Monday Morning
Tags: uart

Nathan looked at the group gathered in front of him satisfied that everyone was present.

"Alright," Nathan said. "You all did well in your 12 days of training. From here on out, there will be training sessions between missions, but they won't be as intense for the civilians. We'll be giving the military members opportunities to train together and the civilians time for more basic skills training, as well as giving you more opportunities to train together. But we also leave time for base work and mission prep. Now, on to the fun stuff." Nathan nodded to a Staff Sergeant who put images up on two of the monitors. "The image on the left is archived footage of a planet SG-1 visited twenty years ago. That pillar there would teleport any Goa'uld or Jaffa to a labyrinth in the mountains. They would wander in there endlessly, unless they chose to pass under Thor's Hammer, in which case, the Goa'uld was killed and the host survived. SG-1 was forced to destroy the hammer device to release Teal'c from the labyrinth. Doctor Jackson believed that the hammer was created by an alien race who impersonated Earth's Norse pantheon. Unlike the Goa'uld, they actually helped their followers. The picture on the left is from a world we've designated P3X-974. Similar pillar, but it appears to be damaged." The still images switched to feeds from the MALP and a UAV flight. "Like the people they found twenty years ago, this world appears to be populated by people from Norse culture. It's a pretty damp, cold, miserable looking place, but that's where we're sending you. Well, some of you. Doctor's Azad and Braeden, I'd like you to stay behind this time and see what you can figure out about that sphere you brought back with you from the last mission. I'll give out assignments in a moment. Before I do, any questions?"

"P3X-974?" Hunter asked, "Any chance we could stop letting the bean counters name things and give it something a little more snazzy like "New Asgard"? I mean, I think me and some of the others about to be subjected to the damp, cold misery might be able to remember it a bit better that way."

Nathan grinned. "Why of course, Lieutenant," Nathan said, a noticeable amount of fairly good-natured sarcasm present in his tone. "And the next time we encounter a world populated by Vikings, perhaps we could call that one 'Another New Asgard' or 'New New Asgard' or 'the New Asgard Not To Be Confused With The Other New Asgard'? Or maybe we could keep just giving them numbers? That should be easy enough for you to remember, right? You can count, I assume? New Asgard I, New Asgard II, New Asgard III, etc. Then we could have as many worlds called New Asgard as we wanted. How does that sound?"

Jake chuckled, as did Hassan and Mantelli, while Ree smirked.

"Dumbbutt," Jeremy muttered low and nearly silent, but with a smile. It was good to see that he wasn't the first person to get the General's scathing retorts.

"May the Major ask," Jake said. "Did the General eat nails for breakfast this morning? Or pour gunpowder in his coffee? Or perhaps both?"

Nathan laughed. "Okay," he said. "The number-letter system is annoying, but it's how the system keeps track of which world is which and who's where, so we're stuck with it. Moving on. Shae, are you seeing anything familiar to you in those images? Lieutenant, I'd like you're input on this as well. We'll be leaning on you and Shae for anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and any other cultural advice might be required."

"Some of these places do have names, you know," Shae pointed out as she studied the images. "I do not recognize the locations and their addresses, nor have I seen these hammer structures before, but I do recognize the style of buildings and clothing, so I believe I have met people like this before."

Hunter flipped through the available images on his tablet, stopping on one, then making sure to sync it to the main viewscreens. "This appears to be a traditional waymarker, kind of like our modern 'distance to...' signs. What's interesting, though, is that on Earth, and in the 'viking/Norse' areas, you'd expect it to be in several different scripts to accommodate different travelers. This one is only in one: the long branch of the Younger Futhark which narrows the cultural derivations to most closely resemble the Danes. Further, and most curiously, it favors the older form of the long branch runic script which occurred prior to about 550 AD. I'd have to consult my linguistic database for translation, but it seems to be a simple placename." Hunter frowned looking at the runic script. There was something familiar about it, but without being sure, he hesitated to even begin speculating. "Is the damage to the Hammer significant?" Hunter asked, "considering no one here is Goa'Uld?"

"I can confirm his assessment of the writing, it is consistent with what I've been studying of your Earth languages, and I agree that it's most unusual to see only the one language on these marker; they must have found a way to isolate themselves from other influences," Shae mused aloud.

"Well," Nathan said. "They're not isolated any more. Asher, Williams, Crow, and Shae, you're going to visit these nice folks. Find out what you can about them. See what you can find out about whatever 'god' they worship and whether or not it's one that might be friendly towards us. Hassan, Mantelli, O'Connor, and three of the Ranger-trained Phoenix Ravens from the SF Squadron will remain here in reserve. Your team will be on standby so don't plan on going anywhere until SG-1 is back." Nathan turned to Ravi and Selyna. "Doctors, as I said, I would like you to take a look at that sphere you brought back. It partially jammed some pretty advanced tech. Can it do more? Can we replicate the technology, or at least simulate it using our own tech? Seems to me we're very much outgunned out there. Being able to disable enemy tech, specifically weapons systems and aircraft, seems like a capability we'd find damned useful." He grinned. "Just try not to blow up the facility. It's still got that 'new base' smell."

Selyna frowned slightly. Even if they could figure out how it worked, which was questionable at best, learning to control it would take much longer. And then further narrowing it to break other folks' tech while leaving theirs unharmed... wait, it hadn't affected theirs. Was that something? Her brows knitted together as she thought through the events and the way the device had affected only the alien tech. Apparently it hadn't affected the Gate even though it had been attached to it since the fake CDC people had obvously used the Gate to leave. That had to mean something. Maybe it was only designed to affect one type of system?

The sudden silence in the room around her made her blink and look around. Everyone was watching her and Ravi. She had the decency to look properly embarrassed at her lapse in attention. "Sorry, of course." she answered, eyes meeting Nathan's for a moment before moving on to each of the others. "Besides," she added with a smirk, "if we blew up the base, that would kind of end our careers pretty quickly and permanently, wouldn't it?" Death had a very final way of doing that.

"You two are taking all the fun out of it," laughed Ravi.

Nathan smirked as well. "Yes," he said. "Yes it would. Doctor Azad? I know you're a mechanical engineer, so if you need to bring in anyone to assist Doctor Braeden and yourself, please do so, but I want the two of you in on it."

"Understood, sir," agreed Ravi, still grinning. "We will not let it out of our sight."

"Okay then," Nathan said. "Any last questions?"

"No, sir," Jake said. He looked at the others. Hassan, Mantelli, and O'Connor all shook their heads. He looked at Williams and Crow. "Lieutenant? Sergeant? Shae? Any last questions? Or can we get this show on the road?"

"Could we not blow up the base?" Jeremy asked, glancing at Ravi. "Mom and Dad brought me some of my favorite snacks from home and, well, you blow up the base and they get blown up as well." He spoke quietly, ernestly and with every indication he was completely and utterly serious.

"Really? That's your priority?" Hunter asked, shaking his head. "Okay, you get to draw equipment and requisitions for the team. Make sure you get everything we'll need for our trip to Son of the Bride of the Return of the Night of the Living Asgard Planet."

Jeremy glanced at Williams, his hands spread out and silently asking why he had to do all the supply requisitions for the mission. Hunter, for his part, just smiled. "You wouldn't want a 'dumb-butt' to handle such an important task would you, Sergeant?"

"Understood, Lieutenant," Jeremy said with a sigh and a shake of his head.

"Good, Shae meet with me after the meeting and we'll go over what we know from what we have on the intel, try to get as much info as we can before we head out." Williams was both anxious and excited as this would be his first trip through the Gate and the first time he went off-world. In this, he realized as he looked around the room, he was the complete boot. But, he'd been on plenty of missions before and if he looked at it like that, this was just another.

"Oh, and Doctors Braeden and Azad," he said as he gathered his materials. "If you need to blow anything up, keep it confined to Crow's quarters, especially his snack shelf."