Chapter Two Hundred and Fourteen

Imperial Outpost. Trading World.

"Lord Thrax may I present to you, Mr Russel Chapman, the British representative to the International Oversight Committee" introduced Shen Xiaoyi the Chinese representative "I've informed him of your desire to expand your business interests on Earth without involving the SGC".

My actual desire was to increase my political influence over the IOC as that organisation had some control of the SGC, a group of people who weren't just going to sit around while I kept taking over whole planets. Sooner or later they'd act so I needed to win over more Tau'ri leaders so as to ensure that the nations of Earth could not unite against me.

Also of recent concern was a new leader of the more backwards Jaffa, a warlord called Arkad who was rallying support and promising to lead the Jaffa back to glory. I felt fairly sure that in the original timeline that Arkad was an Ori supporter and a terrorist so I knew that it was only a matter of time before he did something that might start a war.

"Mr Chapman, thank you for coming," I said while shaking the man's hand.

While I made sure to look the part of a military man I made sure that my outfit was a sedate dark blue navy uniform with a minimal amount of decoration as I wanted this meeting to be less formal than it would be for others. I'd also decided to have a room set up for the display of models of weapons that I was willing to sell to other worlds.

"I could hardly refuse the chance to go off-world" said Chapman "And Miss Xiaoya assures me that you have something of value that the British people can greatly benefit from".

Indeed I did and I was grateful for the man for getting on with the important business. I'd leave the diplomatic stuff to others if the Englishmen wanted a tour of our trading outpost. I would be better off focusing on using my psyker powers to make the man more loyal to me, something I was getting very good at despite having failed with Vala Mal Doran, who was somehow avoiding the bounty hunters.

The first room was full of projectile weapons that wouldn't impress a more advanced society even if some of the models on display were decades ahead of what Earth would use for hand held weapons if they'd never dug up the Stargate. Mostly these were to show visitors from industrialised societies that hadn't progressed as far as Earth.

This second room contained much more interesting examples of the weapons technology that I was willing to buy, including some less well known models of laser weapons.

"Great Britain is known for its arm manufacturing" I started by saying "You're second only to the Americans in that market and I'm offering you a way to become number one".

Well it was true in this universe and that was taking into account the off the books stuff my sources on Earth were telling me about in reports.

I took Chapman over to a display that contained a display of Wattz 1000 laser pistols, which had a few different models.

"These Laser pistols are high-tech sidearms that emit a concentrated beam of coherent light, with sufficient wattage to do considerable damage. They have no recoil, they make far less noise than normal guns and the power cells last longer than an ammo clip" I told my guest "As this is a civilian model meant for home defence, the wattage is lower than the military or police version. The reason for this is that it uses a laser focusing diode instead of a crystal array as you'd find in one of the AER models that I sold to the Americans. However you could add a crystal array if you wanted to turn this model into something with a bit more power at only a slight increase in cost"

Chapman seemed a little confused even if he hid it well.

"I thought that the Americans held the licences for your laser weapons?" he said.

To an extent this was true.

"The USA holds the licences for the military models such as the AER series of laser guns" I confirmed "However they don't hold it for the Wattz 1000 pistol or the The Wattz 2000 laser rifle, which can also be referred to as the Sunbeam laser rifle, these models use the same microfusion cells as the more powerful laser weapons we sold to the USA, but as you can see the designs are different, the rife for example has an extended barrel for additional range".

Chapman had caught on.

"So there would be no infringement on their licenses" he realised.

Which meant the British arms manufacturing industry had a chance for great profit.

"The Americans aren't sharing any of their weapons technology" said Colonel Chekov, Russian Representative and Starship Commander as he entered the room having been a little late for the meeting "They didn't even arm our new ship with the railguns before handing it over".

Chekov had been given command of the Korolev, which should have been armed with a number of Railguns and VLS Missile Tubes, only the SGC had not installed the weapons, although they had left the transporters and shields installed despite them being much more advanced than the weapon systems used on that class of vessel.

"The Imperium has corrected this mistake" I mentioned "Right now we are installing two laser cannons, along with mass accelerator weapons and a few small scale torpedo launchers".

Those weapons were based upon Mass Effect technology without the use of Element Zero but with Naquadah since the Russians would be able to access that mineral themselves to do repairs. The guns should serve better than the railguns that the Americans were using on their ships even without any Element Zero being involved. The tech-priests weren't happy to find out that alien technology had been replicated for use the Tau'ri vessels, but they were too happy with me to argue and while them trying to convince the Russians to use technology they approved of was slowing down the work the Colonel didn't mind since he was paying for any of it and I wasn't charging because the Russians were worth keep on my side.

As to why I'd told Mr Chapman about the refit, well it would be good if the British leadership got the impression that I might be willing to part with more military technology later on.

"So what interest do China and Russia have in these laser weapons?" asked the Englishmen as he gestured to the models I'd been showing off "Are you going to bid on the licenses".

That wasn't their intention.

"My people are in the process of retooling a number of factories to produce gauss weapons that we purchased the right to from Lord Thrax" said Shen "It wouldn't be much trouble to re-tool a few to produce the Watt models of laser pistols and rifles that Britain could sell on the international market".

There was more to be spoken about.

"Both of our nations intend to keep our new gauss weapons for military use" added the Colonel "And since the Americans are doing the same then Britain can sell the Watt models to anyone they wish. Russia and China would purchase the laser weapons at a discount from you for some military and civilian use as we are mostly intending to produce large scale gauss weapons along with more defence lasers. This means we will need a cheap laser rifle for our troops, we would purchase them from British suppliers".

Even the basic Watt model was decades ahead of what arms dealers on Earth could provide their customers and I could send some samples to them via the Russian ship. If we kept this secret long enough the Americans wouldn't be able to prevent the Brits from selling laser weapons all over the world for great profits.

"The Americans are claiming to have invented the weapons I sold them, so it's not at all suspicious that the UK would have come up with their own version of the technology before too long" I pointed out "And with the licenses you're free to develop this technology as you see fit".

As long as no one told the Ad-Mech about it.

"I can see the potential in this," admitted Chapman "What would you want in return?".

Nothing material.

"I want closer ties with the nations of Earth" I explained "Laser weapons are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to technology that I can trade with you and one day you will have to disclose the existence of the Stargate and the fact that the galaxy is filled with people. When that happens I hope for House Thrax to become your world's biggest trading partner".

As for other reasons, those I kept to myself.