Chapter 22: Success Can Sometimes Be Its Own Punishment

Disassembly of the tel'tak hadn't actually taken all that long. Not all that surprising when you have as many as a hundred biobots each slightly more than twice the size of a common tarantula, all equipped with manipulators designed to operate the necessary tools to get the various bits and bobs of the ship separated intact.

I had no real opinion of what parts of the thing were less valuable as compared to others, but given that the entire vehicle without disassembly could fit within the cargo hold of my Heartseed -- assuming it had nothing else -- being able to strip everything potentially useful out of the structural hull made that problem even less of an issue. After seeing the volume remaining I took the decision to actually carry a few sections of the structural hull and armor material just to have on hand for the Thinktanks to study further; while we ourselves might not get too much use out of the materials involved, it was possible that a deeper inspection and the insights acquired therein might be useful for export vehicles or the like, assuming we found a material that could in some way emulate the characteristics of structural/crystalline naquadah alloy in the future; and even without that potential benefit, I felt certain that the humans running the Tau'ri space program would be interested in deeper insight to the construction methods of the goa'uld. Good for improved targeting algorithms and sabotage and the like, if nothing else. The entire process of tearing apart the tel'tak with painstaking care in avoiding damaging any systems beyond what was absolutely necessary -- the things really weren't designed with disassembly in mind -- was finished in a matter of two or three days. Sadly, the tel'tak was too obsolescent to be equipped with a cloaking device.

At which point, my Heartseed and I had been in the Stargate 'verse for a little short of a month, most of which was spent in transit between various destinations. The model of hyperdrive I had obtained was actually slower than the FTL options available to me, but I knew that much of that was simply due to the poor engineering mastery of the goa'uld of the time of its construction. On the other hand, the contemporary era goa'uld starships had hyperdrives that were vastly faster than my own FTL options as yet -- even if I was fairly certain that until such time as I obtained access to the Wraith's hyperdrives it would be a very long time before I could start producing biotech versions of their machines. Maybe if I found a way to reproduce Taelon bioslurry -- the fundamental building block of a very great portion of their biotech engineering -- or an equivalent material without relying on taelon core energy.

Still, overall it was a damned good haul. Even the "civilian export" model of ion thruster, shielding, and weaponry that the Hebridians had been willing to sell me in exchange for a rather large number of fully grown terra-root nodes (which, granted, were fairly easy to produce due to bioalchemy), the Tritonin of Pangar, a couple of tons of refined naquadah and a number of ma'toc staff weapons, seven chappa'ai and their dialing devices, about ten pounds of highly shielded refined naquadriah, a kara'kesh and healing device, one healing sarcophagus only slightly demolished via ma'toc fire, three transport-ring systems, and the Ancient Healing Device. I'd sadly been unable to locate any inert ZPMs that I could obtain without interfering with the Tau'ri's ability to master the technology themselves, to the extent they otherwise would in canon. I didn't mind making a nudge here and there towards an easier "good" outcome for humanity in the Stargate 'verse without actually investing a colony here, but making it harder by taking things they would have claimed just didn't seem like a good idea. In the meantime, having multiple copies of ancient-derived cold fusion reactors seemed like it would help with the energy production of the fleet, as we could study alternative solutions and actually get a better handle on how to optimize the terra-root nodes as reactors. Up until this point the Jovian League's mastery of the plants was simply in the form of how to monkey-see monkey-do copy what Linea had accomplished. With mechanical reactors to study, almost without question based on different principles, we could get a solid understanding of the reaction principles and thus improve power supply.

If something went wrong and the Ori for example wound up conquering the Milky Way in this universe, I would have a damned hard time looking at myself in the mirror afterwards.

One thing I was particularly looking forward to was having a transporter-esque system for my ships, even if it was merely a copy of the ring system. I'd have to wait on that being re-engineered as biotech however, as the things were simply massive. Twelve tons massive. Pretty much all of the larger pieces of technology I was carrying in the ship's holds were worryingly equally dense. If I'd had to actually carry the stuff through a transreality or transdimensional transit myself, I'd not want even half so much cargo aboard. I felt much more confident about the development of a biotech shield solution, what with the Taelon virtual glass emitters being practically that already.

There was actually more I'd been hoping to get in this 'verse, but it had already been more than a month that I'd been cruising around the Stargate 'verse and quite frankly I felt like we were stuffed to the gills enough as it was and I was a big believer in the idea that one who tries to do everything all at once generally speaking reliably accomplishes nothing. So instead I left.

I had not anticipated seeing an entire Asgard battle armada forming up in the system of the gate we had agreed upon being the access point I would use when returning to the Ida galaxy. Nor, further, had I expected to be hailed by the largest and most heavily-armed ship of that fleet immediately upon return.

With a rather great deal of trepidation at the blatant and hugely unnecessary display of force, I answered the tachyonic comms signal. And wasn't it just interesting that they were using the most common method of transship comms my own people were using right now? "I give greetings to my friends, the Asgard. That's a … mighty big fleet y'all got assembling there. Anything I should be worried about?"

The Asgard on my holodisplay nodded his head as though bowing. "I am Freyr, commander of the Yggdrasil. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance personally, your holiness."

I barely resisted raising a questioning eyebrow. 'Holiness' was a new one. Hearing it in warm tones from an Asgard, of all things, was almost more than I was prepared for. "Likewise, Freyr. Likewise. To what do I owe the honor of the opportunity for it?"

Freyr waved his hand and in the upraised palm of his hand in the holodisplay was a visualization of the map of the Asgard's home galaxy. About five sixths of it were red, the rest were a light blue. "Six months ago, this was the state of the Ida galaxy, in terms of the territorial control of we Asgard and the Replicators. The Asgard portion of the map is in blue."

I refrained from snorting at the painfully obvious claim. "Okay…?"

The map morphed visually, in chunks here and there, and suddenly only a little over two thirds of the galaxy was in red. "This is the current state of our galaxy. We have your contributions to our people's efforts to thank for this."

I allowed my confusion to show on my face as I responded. "I … don't follow. How could a few biobot printers, and eight hundred pounds of refined eezo result in … that?"

Freyr bobbed his head in a gesture that if I hadn't just spent a month in prolonged contact with Gefion I would have no idea was a smile. "In and of itself, it did not. However, thanks to the 'biobots' and a few modifications we made with Asgard technology to their design, we were able to destroy many key command nexuses and to actually reclaim several then replicator-controlled former Asgard shipyards. As well as purge two of the most readily defended known neutronium deposits of replicator presence in a way that no Asgard taskforce has yet been able to emulate. The Asgard civilization thus owes your people a great debt of gratitude."

I couldn't help but doubt Freyr's assertions. "You … you do know that this turning of the tides won't last, right? That the replicators will develop a counter-strategy and then you'll be barely any better off than you are now?"

Freyr waved a hand dismissively. "For several centuries, the Asgard fleets have been in a war of attrition which we were slowly losing. You have given us a multi-year bout of reprieval from our foes and as a result we now have the means to diverge assets to functions and tasks that have historically been considered helpful but not viable in an emergency footing. Such as establishing secondary or fallback positions from which to rebuild what was once lost. That is the purpose for the existence of the fleet you now see before you."

Freyr's response was enlightening in one context, and utterly unhelpful to address my confusion. This obviously still showed up on my face, as he went on to further explain. "In the past we could not risk frequent or large-scale transits between our own and other galaxies, for fear of the replicators discovering any such large-scale movement and investigating. Now that we have an opportunity to ensure their attentions are firmly directed elsewhere, we have the means to establish a beachhead foothold in several, thus ensuring the survival of Asgard industrial infrastructure."

I felt a vicious grin creeping onto my face. "You're… going to start actively patrolling the systems covered by the Protected Planets treaty in force. That's what this fleet is for? That and searching for viable colonies in the Tau'ri galaxy?"

The commander of the pseudo-exodus fleet nodded that Asgard-equivalent-of-a-smile again. "Indeed, holy emperor. That is exactly what we intend to do."

I actually chuckled. This was going to play utter and complete havoc on the canonical timeline of Stargate. "Well, sir, don't let me interfere with your duties. I shall carry on with my own."

Freyr's hologram dispersed as the commlink was cut, and I got my second surprise of my arrival back in Asgard space; a small contingent of the smaller of their vessels was arranging themselves to form a corridor that mapped to the path I would navigate through to get to the outpost world the transdimensional Gate was hosted on. The spaceship eqiuvalent of an honor guard. Gefion was beamed off of my ship once we were moving past the range of the Asgard fleet. She would probably be reassigned to observe any ships I would deploy to station over the local alchemist outpost -- not that they were anything more than a figleaf to the notion of national sovereignty, but they were the best we Jovians could do and by hell we would do it. As much as I felt we could trust the Asgard to defend us, I wasn't going to count on the largesse of other nations to protect my subjects.

But seriously; just how much of an advantage had my small gesture given the little grey bastards?

The rest of the trip back to the Homeside Starhaven was uneventful. It felt oddly quiet in the ship without Gefion's muttering and puttering about poking at things. This was quickly offset, however, by the response of Synod-02 to my acquisitions.

As I laid out the various devices in the hangar bay of the primary Matrioshka station which was in synchronous orbit over Starhaven itself -- no longer needing to land directly thanks to the ID waystations that could transit us from near proximity to the Gate in orbit down to one of the Gates within the city itself -- her eyes kept switching from item to item, as she downloaded the analytical data that the Heartseed had obtained via the various sensor systems and my own alchemical inspections. Once I finally laid everything out, she turned back to me, and bowed formally. "Sir. These devices … an entirely new technological base to integrate into our existing systems, and compare each against each other? This is an incredible increase in the workload of our Thinktanks!" She smiled to show her words shouldn't be taken as criticisms.

I snorted mildly and waved her 'concern' off. "Yeah, well. Just wait until you see the matter-energy conversion processed involved in the stargates and the ring transporters. Or the entirely novel faster than light transit mechanism. Or devices which emit energy that heals organisms exposed to said energy. Or the contact neural interfaces, or the entirely… well, hell, you get the point. I brought goodies. Now go bake me a cake with 'em."

She narrowed her eyes. "Bake you a cake?"

I just chuckled. "Looks like you guys didn't get absolutely everything from my memories. Just … have a blast, Doctor. I'm going under for six months this time, I think. I'll expect some meaty progress once I've awoken again."

The Doctor smiled eagerly. "You'll have it. Rest assured, Great Maker, you'll have it!"

I waved her off as I walked towards the facility where my cryochamber was held. I could hardly wait to see what they manage to work out from all the various principles that the entirely new techbase would expose to my people for future study, let alone what they manage to pull off from efforts to integrate the disparate sources. I did make a point to note that they should actually use the stargates to permit research in any of the more … energetic … technologies at long distance from the Sol system, rather than just study the things locally. A little over a week's travel one-way with the biotic "Kett" drive seemed like plenty of distance between the Starhaven gate and whatever system would be used for that research. 3,000 lightyears was a good round number.

I also made another note to The General to start deploying League-manufactured stargates in deep space at least a lightyear away from the Citadel in each of the three dimensions we inhabited of the Mass Effect universe, and to deploy one of the goa'uld made ones in that location in the Homeside universe. Between that and the shipscale Slide portals, we'd be able to transit entire fleets to and from the Citadel within minutes. I had no reason to believe that the mere physical presence of my colonies in Jupiter would upset the timeline of Mass Effect to the point that the Reapers would arrive a hundred and fifty years early, but now that I had the means to safely attempt to counter that "worst end" in some way, I might as well deploy it. It was damned near the least I could do.