5 Asgard High Council

Above the planet of Lantea, the Daedalus and Invictus was standing guard. Invictus was currently being commanded by Major Lorne with Atlantis expedition scientists studying the ship. Suddenly a hyperspace window formed and deposited three O'Neill class ship. Both the Daedalus and Invictus sensed the ships. Chuck, who was monitoring the space around the planet also immediately detected the ships on Atlantis' sensors. He called for Dr. Weir to come out of her office.

"Dr. Weir, three ships just dropped out of hyperspace. It's IFF is reading as the Asgard."

"Alright, alert Colonel Sheppard, Dr. McKay, and Captain Ila. Tell them that the Asgard are here."

The Daedalus had opened a channel with the Invictus also patched in. "Supreme Commander Thor. I'm Colonel Caldwell of the Daedalus. It is an honor to meet you. You are considered a hero back at the SGC."

"Greetings Colonel. I have heard of you from Hermiod. He has stated that he enjoys being apart of the crew on board your ship. Now, I must cut the pleasantries short. The Asgard are eager to meet with our old friends."

As soon as Sheppard, McKay, and Ila arrived, along with Ronon and Teyla, there is a bright flash of light on the main floor of the gate room and seven Asgard and Colonel Caldwell appear. One of the Asgard was Thor. The seven Asgard inspected the room, taking note of the scientists and security personnel. As soon as they spotted Ila, Thor surprisingly rushed up the stairs to greet him. Actually embracing Ila in a hug before breaking away.

"Captain Ila! It has been a while. How are you? We haven't spoken for over ten thousand years. Well, for you it is more along the lines of fifty-three years but it is really good to see you again, old friend!"

McKay was surprised, along with everybody else (except the Asgard), by the fact that Thor actually knew Ila and the fact that Ila doesn't look older than his early thirties.

"What do you mean fifty-three years? How old are you? You don't look older than thirty."

"Me? I am well into my early three hundreds! Three hundred forty-two to be exact. I am in the prime of my life. I could live for another six to seven hundred years if I was being conservative on the estimate. A thousand if I actually stretch it a bit. My people may live long lives and be extremely intelligent, but it doesn't always mean that they are always the wisest. Look at how their arrogance has cost the war, even when we had superior technology."

"That is incredible!" McKay exclaims. "Think of all the things I could do if I had that much time on my hands! I could solve all the problems that we have been trying to solve for years. The only drawback would be that I would have no one at my level at a certain point. Not that there is anyone at my level currently. Except maybe some of the Asgard, and the Ancients, (mumbles this last part) and Sam."

"Well, that could actually be arranged. But that is for a later discussion. I assume that the Asgard High Council would like to have the meeting as soon as possible." Ila gestured towards the Asgard High Council. Thor turned back to look at the rest of the council. He felt a bit awkward about leaving them down there without introducing them.

"Yes." Thor coughs. "I was so happy to reunite with an old friend that I forgot to introduce the council. These are Chief Archon, though you may know him as Odin from your Norse mythologies(he doesn't actually have an official name so I am going to name him Odin), Freyr, Penegal, Assir, Balder (there are also two Asgard High Council members that don't have a name either so I'm just picking two Norse gods to be them), and Vidar. High Councilors, these are the Tau'ri that have been taking care of Atlantis, and next to them is my friend, Ila Ultum of the Lanteans. You all know of the intelligence of Ila and his cousin Janus."

"Greetings Ila Ultum. I am Odin, Chief Archon of the Asgard High Council. It is a pleasure to meet you. Before we continue our conversation, I believe that there is a meeting room close by. I would appreciate it if we could move into the more secure room. I invite the leaders of the Tau'ri as well. It concerns your people as well."

"Yes, of course. Please, right this way." Weir gestures towards the conference room.

The group makes their way into the conference room and sits down into the chairs. The doors of the conference room close and the meeting of the three races begin.

"So, what does the Asgard High Council want to talk about? If it is about your genetic degradation problem, I am more than willing to assist as I have told Hermiod."

"Yes, Ila Ultum. That is one of the things that I and the rest of the council would like to discuss in detail. The other thing that we would like to discuss... is the Ori." Odin said while looking at Ila's face, trying to determine what kind of a reaction he has towards the name drop. Ila's face when he heard the name, Ori, immediately drew a frown.

"What does the Ori have to do with anything? My people haven't had contact with them in the past sixty million years or so."

"The Ori have ascended and their followers have made their way into the Milky Way galaxy and are converting its' people into more followers to gain more power. I was hoping that you may have a solution to this."

"If the Ori are in the Milky Way, then the Ascended in the galaxy should have stopped them!"

"The Ascended are doing nothing. The Ori's followers are using powerful vessels to destroy any who oppose them."

Ila's face twisted with disgust. His eyes were exuding rage. "Why are the Ascended not doing anything about this? Those arrogant bastards! They think that they shouldn't interfere no matter what, don't they. Hah, my people are always the same. They think that as long as it doesn't affect them, nothing else matters."

The conference room was filled with a thick, heavy atmosphere. The Tau'ri were shocked by how different a person Ila transformed into. He was nice and polite in the short time that they knew him before this moment. Now, he was a person filled with anger and disgust. They could see his real age now. He wasn't some young man with righteous fury, angry at the loss of life. He was more a bitter old man that is disgusted by his people for how stupid and arrogant they were.

Ila, noticing how thick the atmosphere had gotten, calmed himself down. He cleared his throat.

"I apologize for my outburst. I am just sick and tired of all the stupid things my people have caused. Though I agree with my peoples decision to leave their home galaxy to get away from the Ori. Leaving the Ori to come back and do something like this was just incredibly stupid. It was my people again, causing the emergence of the Wraith. I knew the scientists personally, that had discovered the Iratus bug and experimented with it. When the experiment caused the Iratus bug to feed on humans, it turned into a Wraith after several generations, instead of immediately terminating and destroying them, they continued to leave them be. Then the Wraith gained organic ships. When they realized that it had come to that point, it was already too late. The damage was done. The Wraith grew in numbers and you all know the rest of what happened to my people."

Everyone was silent as Ila cooled down. He seemed to be ashamed of all the problems that his people have caused. Thor couldn't watch any longer as his friend beat himself up over things that were not in his control.

"Ila! I understand that you are upset but you can't blame yourself for what has already happened. It is now time for you to decide on what you want to do. I want you to know that the Asgard are willing to help you fix what you see as your peoples mistakes. And I am sure that the Tau'ri would also be willing to help you."

That seemed to make Ila brighten up a bit. He seemed to come to a decision about how to fix the mistakes of his people.

"Thank you, Thor. I am glad to have you as a friend. Chief Archon. You had mentioned that this discussion concerned the Tau'ri as well? What did you wish to discuss?"

"Yes, the Asgard High Council have come to a decision that many still do not approve of. They believe that the Tau'ri aren't ready. But with you, our old ally back after ten thousand years, along with Thor vouching on the Tau'ri, we have decided to grant the Tau'ri an Asgard computer core. It will be full of all our current knowledge. It will be installed on the Tau'ri's newest ship the Daedalus. We will also upgrade the ship's weapons, shields, and sensors. We do this, so that the Tau'ri are able to defend themselves while we assist you, Ila Ultum, on building new Lantean Warships with Asgard upgrades on any systems that are lacking. With your help, we may be able to prevent the Ori from destroying any more worlds. The Asgard are still a relatively young species. We have only a hundred thousand years of history compared to the millions of years that your people have. As you have said, your people may not be wisest, but they are one of the smartest races in any galaxy."

The Atlantis Expedition was stunned by this news. They were about to gain all the knowledge the Asgard had. Then shockingly Ila had said.

"I appreciate your help. But you don't have to assist me with a lot. I will only need your help with gathering the materials for a device that will help with the ship building. I will also need help with putting it together."

"The Asgard are willing to assist you in what you need. We can also make the device with our matter converters. All that is required is to input the schematics into the Asgard computer core and it will be constructed."

"That is wonderful. I am also going to be helping out the... Tau'ri was it? Yes, I will also upgrade the Daedalus with Lantean technology. My people do have one of the most advanced technology ever known to exist. The thing that I want to build, is a ZPM generator. It is a device that Janus and I had been working on after the Arcturus project had started. Janus and I could see the dangers that came with extracting energy from our own universe. The generator on the other hand, works by selecting a relatively empty universe, then creating an artificial pocket of subspace-time as big as the universe itself. The energy output is easily millions of times as powerful as a single ZPM. I plan on installing this generator in Atlantis to power up the factory control systems. The reason I never got a chance to install the generator during the war was because Moros rejected the idea at the time. He said that project Arcturus was the way to go. He was actually just angry at Janus for creating a device that blew up stargates as a side effect. Doesn't matter anymore. If there are any shipyards that are still around, it will start the automated process of building ships. Though I don't plan on building any of the Wraith war class ships. Those wouldn't be powerful enough to take on the Ori. I need to design a new class that can take on any and all enemies. I will require the Asgard's help on how to go about this."

"Then what about the Invictus? What will become of your previous ship?" McKay asked, somehow able to get over the shock of not one, but two advanced races giving them technology.

"It will be cannibalized to create the ZPM generator. Any materials that are still missing, I am hoping the Asgard can provide. After the ZPM generator is online, Atlantis will be back to full power and its' full system capabilities restored. I will need to activate the mining drones that have probably gone dormant. After the Wraith and the Ori have been dealt with, I am going to need the Tau'ri's help in restoring my people. Also after the Wraith and Ori have been dealt with, I will work on fixing the Asgard genetic degradation. I only need a sample of Asgard DNA from before the degradation became fatal. Using the genetic manipulator here on Atlantis, it will only take a short amount of time before I am able to solve the problem."

"We would be more than willing to help you, Captain Ila, but what can the people of Earth help you with?" Weir skeptically asked.

"If your people are here and the systems of Atlantis are somewhat online. It means that your people have a genetic marker that my people developed for our race to use our most important technologies. Using the genetic manipulator, I can turn the people that have the genetic marker into new Lanteans. That is, if your people are willing. If not, I will be forced to use cloning for the first generation of new Lanteans."

"I will discuss this with the people back on Earth and see what they have to say. But I don't think they will reject the idea. It will probably be volunteer only."

"Thank you for your assistance."

"Ila. The Asgard would be honored to assist you with building the device. I am sure that many Asgard will be thrilled with the prospect of finally being free of our genetic degradation. When the council returns, we will immediately gather our best engineers to come back and install the Asgard computer core and upgrade the Daedalus, as well as work with you in creating your ZPM generator. They will also probably jump at the opportunity of designing a new ship with both of our peoples technologies to destroy the Wraith and the Ori, as well as any other hostile race." Thor said as the other six council members silently agreed.

After Thor said that, there was an alarm blaring throughout the conference room. Everyone rushed out of the room to the control room. Dr. Weir questioned Chuck.

"What is going on? Is there an attack?"

"Atlantis just detected three Wraith hive ships with cruiser escorts heading towards us. They will be here in three days."

"What?! Why didn't Atlantis detect them sooner?"

"It seems that they were cloaked from sensors. They were hiding in a nebula about 150 light years out. They seem to have detected the three ships in orbit."

"Well, it is pretty suspicious. Three ships above the planet where Atlantis is. I guess that I need to activate the cloak again and the three ships above need to jump to a safe distance until they leave." McKay said before being interrupted by Thor.

"There is no need for that. The Asgard will destroy the three Hives and their escorts. It is the least I can do to help both of my friends, the Tau'ri and Ila. It will seem like the Hive ships were destroyed by some advanced race that they haven't come across yet. Which is the truth. Ila, I will see you in a few days. I will return with the engineers that have volunteered, along with any materials that you may require. See you soon, my friend"

With that, the Asgard High Council disappeared into bright lights and the Asgard ship above orbit immediately went straight for the Wraith Hive ships and its' cruisers. The Hive ships had to drop out of hyperspace just before the last jump to Atlantis. When the Wraith ships had dropped out of hyperspace for hull regeneration, they were immediately bombarded by the powerful weapons of the O'Neill class Asgard ship. They were destroyed in five minutes flat. Afterwards, the Asgard ship jumped to hyperspace. No doubt on its way back to the Ida galaxy to gather the necessary engineers and materials.