'Because the Slime God is a mindless thing,' Hilda began. 'And my goddess has slain it!' she boasted. Since her goddess was Freyda, she was still not technically lying. Quickly she went on, turning the questions back 'We have been inside the ha'tak and learned much from the bones. Tell me, what do you know of this sign?' Pulling it from under her armour, Hilda displayed the emblem of the Free Jaffa, watching them for their reaction. She thought this a useless question, but the others had been so set on finding the so-called Free Jaffa, she had to ask.


OOC: Wondering if they are of the Free Jaffa, Sense Motive 16.
23:13, Today: Hilda rolled 16 using 1d20+1. sense motive.

"Yes, we know of it," the first Jaffa says, and spits on the ground.

"It is the symbol used by Crom for the orak'tar!" the second Jaffa says, apparently seeing no reason to repeat his comrade's action.


Based on their response, it seems clear to Hilda that these are not Free Jaffa. In fact, the concept seems totally unfamiliar to them.

Rajip Continued to watch the interaction through his sniper scope. Her occasionally, sweeps back the way they came just to be sure they aren't followed for whatever reason. At Kaspar's command, the sniper replies "Copy" and focuses in on the two Jaffa.

OOC: Rolled Sense Motive to judge any hostility.
21:47, Today: Rajip Mojdar rolled 6 using 1d20+2.Sense Motive.

Hilda looked disgusted at the emblem. It wasn't even a Free Jaffa sign. Vasandra had been wrong. What a wasteful attempt this was! She could have just slain them and been done with it! She cast the stupid thing into the bushes, demonstrating to the Jaffa she shared their contempt, albeit for a different cause.

She wondered what to do with them now. She was too honourable to blast them in cold blood in the midst of parley. How could she use them? 'Good. Perhaps I can trust you.' she began warily, playing for time. She couldn't break off now to confer with her team, she just had to wing it. She remembered the reptilian Jaffa they'd seen emerge from the Ring of Stars. 'Because the filthy orak'tar have now invaded your god's ship. What would you do it about?'

"We have no god now," replies the one Jaffa.

"We have no leader among us," replies the other, "though Mogar aspires to it. He is not smart enough."

"We will follow your goddess... and kill the orak'tar that have invaded the ha'tak."

"Anything to stop these incessant patrols around the ha'tak looking for a Slime God that has already been destroyed!"

OOC: Sorry, I missed this.


Hilda was taken aback by how quickly the Jaffa switched gods, after hearing they were freed of their last master. They hardly even cared he was dead. Slaves to Goa'uld, my arse! Surely they just desired a new king to serve, to be his jarls and warriors. So much for these Free Jaffa. She wasn't sure how to respond, but knew she needed to speak with her team before deciding anything. 'Good. Perhaps you may be worthy to serve my goddess – if you can prove it. Go tell your fellow Jaffa. Kree!'

The two Jaffa salute and head off, essentially continuing their patrol, but not as interested in the ship as they were.

Hilda stood and watched the Jaffa march off, suspicious as to what they'd really do. Why continue their patrol anyway? Once she was sure they were out of earshot, she directed her team to depart by the paths she'd shown them earlier.

Once they were reunited, Hilda declared with a cocky grin 'I have always wanted to tell a Jaffa to kree.' She looked around the team, asking 'Did you hear what was said? These Jaffa will change sides easily, and there are no "free Jaffa". I say we send them to fight the orak'tar for us.'

In reply to Hilda (msg # 907):

"Yes, I heard that - though I wasn't sure I'd heard it correctly." Kaspar nods, "While I don't find it odd that news of any kind of a 'The Goa'uld Are Not Gods' sentiment among Jaffa would tend to be suppressed, I have to agree with you that their attitude towards changing allegiance from one Goa'uld to another was rather ... laissez-faire." Kaspar catches a glimpse of Hilda in his peripheral vision, and realizes she might not know the French phrase.

"That is, they were very casual and indifferent - though they did express a desire to get revenge for their lost boss. So they weren't completely indifferent towards him." he qualifies.

"Which brings up the next, more immediate issue ..." Kaspar turns to grin at Hilda, "That was an excellent prevarication you used there, Hilda, saying that you served a 'Goddess' without ever mentioning her name. They likely would have recognized the name 'Freyda' as being of Asgardian origin; and it is no lie that your culture worships the Asgard as Gods." Kaspar chuckles, "That performance probably would have fooled a lie-detection device - or earned you a film award."

"Anyway. We are now faced with the problem of having a large number of Jaffa now expecting to meet with the local 'Goddess' ... Jaffa who will likely open fire as soon as they see an Asgard! What are we going to do about that? I don't suppose, Freyda, that your chair has a holographic system that could make you look like a small Human with creepy glowing eyes, sitting in a floating chair, could it?"

Kaspar pauses and frowns in thought - pulling his pipe from a pocket of his tactical vest and idly toying with it.

"Although..." Kaspar says slowly, "I also find it particularly odd that this Goa'uld - this Fu-Ts'ang..." Kaspar pronounces the Chinese name with a Cantonese accent, "...is not mentioned in Freyda's database. The Asgard have been dealing with the System Lords for millennia; how can there be a Goa'uld they don't know about?"

"And what was that other name they mentioned - when you flashed the medal? Crum? Is that a Goa'uld? And that other word they used - I didn't quite catch it - they said that Crum used the symbol on the medal for the ... the, what?" Kaspar looks to Hilda and Freyda for an answer.

'They probably knew their "god" was dead and devoured by slime when he never came out of the ha'tak.' Hilda conceded grudgingly. 'They denied it openly, because they could not speak ill of their god, but knew it in their hearts. They needed me to speak it for them.'

She beamed at the praise. 'I know.' she said smugly. 'I am surprised they did not ask. If they demanded a name, I would have named Angrboða of the Jötunn, She Who Offers Sorrow. She is an ettin, mother of monsters, and I figured she would be too little known for these Jaffa to question.'

'But, we do not need to show them a goddess. I never said she was here... Even if we must, we do not need to show them Freyda. We have a dark elf.' Hilda indicated Vasandra, who looked alien enough to avoid any question of a lack of glowing eyes.

'The name was Crom. And the word was orak'tar. It means...' Hilda struggled to translate between two foreign languages. 'Tar is short for Tau'ri, and orak is... "not thing"? "Wrong thing"? A bad wrong thing. It means they are "un-human". They must be the lizard things we saw.'


OOC: "Abomination" is the word Hilda's getting at.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:23, Thu 13 Apr 2017.

"No, my chair does not have illusionary abilities at the moment, but I shall make a mental note to add that function when I get the chance," Freyda replied to Kaspar.

"This is a most interesting mission. We have the technology to project an image of Norse gods, but I did not bring that with me, either. By the time I brought along everything that you seem to think I would need, I'd have brought an entire Asgard ship."

"We explored this cluster 15,000 years ago, but there was nothing of interest here then. The Goa'uld had not expanded this far at that time."

"I think you give the Jaffa too much credit. They will not be educated. They will not have much knowledge about anything that doesn't let them perform their function better."

"What you consider a lack of loyalty is merely survival. If their god is dead, which they expected and Hilda confirmed, then they have no protection, no home. They are not trained to survive on their own. It has not been long enough for them to panic yet."

"You offered them shelter from the storm. Why would they not take that? Revenge was merely a rationale for them to accept. What I just explained as their motivation was probably not a conscious thought on their part. You have free will. Your entire life is built upon generations of your people having free will. That is not the case with Jaffa."

"You are expecting them to THINK. Yet they have been conditioned to do just the opposite."

In reply to Freyda (msg # 910):

Rajip continued to monitor the two Jaffa until they disappeared around the side of the ha'tak.

"All clear", he informed the others as he readjusted his position to keep blood pumping to all his extremities.

When Hilda directed everyone to meet near the huge ship, he remained hidden and replied, "I'll stay here and keep watch in case they conned you better than you conned them. Just keep and open mic and I'll be listening." After that, Rajip continued to scan the area that the Jaffa departed, then the other side of the ha'tak, then back again.

(OOC: Rajip will continue to keep watch while we discuss what we're doing. Also Sense Motive to see if they acted fishy when they thought they weren't being watched closely... through a sniper scope.)

In reply to Rajip Mojdar (msg # 911):

Kaspar nods at Hilda's report, and Freyda's analysis.

"Right. That all makes sense, put in that perspective - on one hand the Jaffa are a Warrior culture, expected to be able to think and react almost independently on the battlefield, but they are also a Slave culture, raised and trained to obey without thinking. I can see where that would create a conflicted logic process."

"Alright, then. Captain Tourmaline - are you willing to pretend to be a Goa'uld for a little while? These Jaffa are already used to having their 'God' in a non-Human body. Which reminds me, who has the ribbon device of their Goa'uld master - the dead one, up in the ha'tak control room - who has his ribbon device? That's not something we're trained to leave lying around - I'm sure I remember someone taking it from that horned skeleton. A ribbon device is all metal, crystals and circuits, the slime shouldn't have eaten it..."

'The kara kesh.' Hilda supplied. 'I picked it up... And put it in the lock-box on the FRED.' The FRED currently locked away inside the pyramid. 'I thought it would be dangerous. That is what we are trained to do.' she reminded, no matter how inconvenient that choice was now.

Rajip did not sense any duplicity from the Jaffa. They aren't sure what they are doing, or perhaps that what they are doing is the correct course of action. They are clearly unsure.

"I will pretend to be a Goa'uld, if you think that plan is a good one," Vasandra replies to Kaspar. "I do not profess to be very good at ruses, however, so be prepared to defend me."

"I do not need the kara kesh, as I have two zats. That should be enough to convince them."

'I will.' Hilda vowed. 'But the others will have to hide again. They will not pass as Jaffa, and the Jaffa will recognise them from our skirmish the other day. I am surprised they did not recognise me.' She was also disappointed. 'Unless we take one of you as prisoner?'

In reply to Hilda (msg # 913):

"Damn. Hoist by our own security petard!" Kaspar grinned, "Well, I guess we'll just have to do without. Vasandra, I hope you're feeling up to a melodramatic villainous performance."

Kaspar returned his Makarov pistol to it's old, leather holster.

Then, with a frown, he asked, "Has anyone else wondered about the inconsistency, here?" he points off where the two human Jaffa had gone, "Those Jaffa served a Goa'uld with a non-Human host, a Xel, wasn't it? And that same Goa'uld had twenty personal guards that were also non-Human, remember! But these human Jaffa appear to despise orak'tar; the non-Human Jaffa. Even the Jaffa Prime was non-Human. Yet these Jaffa, outside here, with their evidenced hatred of non-Human Jaffa, say they served with and for a non-Human. On top of all that, suspiciously, I think, the survivors outside, here, say that they have no leader types among themselves - could all the leaders aboard the ha'tak have been non-Human?"

And what about the few of their compatriots trapped aboard the ha'tak - and only a few! - that carried the small medal with a symbol representing non-Human Jaffa. What's the deal with that? They hate orak'tar, but they carry lucky pieces representing them?"

"And let's not forget that the ha'tak crashed because it was sabotaged - the naquada fuel was dumped. Could those Jaffa that carried these medals actually have been double-agents, working for Crom, or that Goa'uld in the ship..."

Kaspar pauses, a stunned look on his face.

"Wait a minute! Those two Jaffa said that their master was called Fu-Ts'ang - the name of a Chinese Dragon. We've been assuming that these outside Jaffa served the Goa'uld infesting the Xel, whose skeleton we found seated on the throne up in the pel'tak. But I just remembered, the Goa'uld who came through the stargate with the Gator-Jaffa was Human. Oriental, to be specific, and wearing ancient Chinese clothing that was heavily decorated with a Dragon motif!"

Kaspar now looks grief-stricken,

"Holy Mother Mary, what have I done? What if we have this situation backwards? What if the human Goa'uld now inside the ha'tak is actually Fu-Ts'ang, and these Jaffa outside, here, are the saboteurs who disabled the ha'tak, and fled outside once it had crashed - incidentally letting the slime inside?"

As Kaspar went on and on, Hilda grew increasingly annoyed and impatient at the revelations, then finally exploded 'What? You made me pretend to be Jaffa for nothing?! This is why we kill Jaffa first, then learn who they serve. Because they lie and they are boring and they are all the same.' she fumed, stamping around in circles like a caged tiger. She caught herself, snarling in frustration.

'Bah! Who cares what stupid Jaffa say and think? We know there are humans and orak'tar on both sides. Maybe the humans sometimes serve the orak'tar? Maybe this,' she waved Crom's orak'tar sign, which she'd retrieved from the bushes after throwing it away earlier, 'Is just a dog-tag a Jaffa picked up? We can never know for sure, so we should stop making up ideas to fill the holes.'


OOC: Of course, it would help if we knew what symbols they all had on their heads?
This message was last edited by the player at 04:42, Wed 26 Apr 2017.

OOC: I've just uploaded a new 'map' which shows the Jaffa symbols under Map J. The top row were the ones on the Varana that came through the gate. You didn't see a Prime, but you did see a Second, who was on guard in the gate room and was killed.

The bottom row are the Fu-Ts'ang symbols. All the Jaffa outside the ha'tak have the Soldier symbol on their heads. None of them have the Leader symbol. Inside, you saw several Soldiers, two Leaders, and one Prime. None of the human Jaffa inside were Leaders.

Hope that clears it up.

OOC: Thanks. So we're actually completely fine: Fu-Ts'ang and his crew are dead, bar the group outside we just talked to; and the skull-cross lot are the unknown invaders inside.

In reply to Hilda (msg # 920):

"Hey, I'm still new to this, right?" Kaspar snaps back at Hilda, "Four months ago I was a simple Professor in Silesia, trying to shove a higher education into the brains of hormone-controlled youths!"

Kaspar reaches up and morosely strokes his almost-clean shaven chin, "And the Land Forces hadn't made me shave my beard." he adds in a quieter voice, "It was a nice beard ... it took me years to get it just right ..."

Kaspar suddenly shakes his head, then looks around as if waking from a nap. After a moment-or-two, though, his demeanor starts to change - the set of his jaw becomes firmer, the jovial light that's usually in his eyes seems to fade, he stands a little straighter, and he surveys the area as if already looking at a wasteland.

"Right. Things are screwed up - the usual Soviet Way. So. We handle it Old School - also the Soviet Way ..."

Kaspar turns his now-hard gaze towards Hilda and points at her, he no longer sounds like someone from Chicago. There is an almost Slavic taint to his speech, now.

"Hilda, ven dose Jaffa retoorn yoo vill be joost outside dis tree line..." Kaspar thrusts his finger at the ground where the Team is standing, "Joost over dere, vere dere is a convenient fallen tree to duck behind, and vere vee can provide good cover fire. Vasandra vill stand back here, in dee shadows of dee tree line, but still visible."

"If only dose two Jaffa retoorn, or it's joost a small delegation, yoo, Hilda, vill inform dem, in dee strongest terms dat yoor Goddess - Vasandra, pick some Goa'uld-sounding name yoo can live vit and tell Hilda - Hilda, yoo vill tell any Jaffa representatives dat come back here dat yoor Goddess is here, in dis field! And if any of dose Jaffa vant to beseech yoor Goddess for acceptance and protection, dey vill get every one of deir sad asses over here faster dan vatever-dee-hell Kree means!"

Kaspar turns his head to look over where Rajip is watching where the Jaffa had gone, "Sergeant." Kaspar says, double checking that he was sending this over his radio, "Once dee main body of Jaffa get here, Hilda vill have dee one who is trying to be deir leader identify himself. Dee very moment dat he does so, yoo vill put a bullet right in dee middle of dee symbol on his head. If yoo hit him anyvere else, I vill have your pay docked an entire veek. Yoo are an American Ranger Sniper - time to prove it."

Kaspar swings his gesturing hand to include the rest of the Team, "Once dee American has opened fire, dee rest of us vill open up on dee Jaffa - including yoo, too, Hilda and Vasandra. Dee objective is to kill every ... single ... one of dose Jaffa. I do not feel dee need for prisoners. Kill dem. Kill dem all."

'And not long ago, I was a farmer and hunter who thought she could be a skald.' Hilda sighed wistfully. 'But I have fought Jaffa before... Old man, there is no need for silly voices. Maybe there is no we don't need to kill them all, yet. This one called Mogar, who would be their leader, is not liked by his men. The one I spoke with called him a fool. If he complains, kill him, and the rest will swear on their arm-rings or whatever to serve Vasandra. The first to obey can be leader.' she pointed out. She couldn't believe she was reviving the old plan. But as much as she didn't like it, she was practical and wanted to salvage what they'd already accomplished. She hadn't pretended to be a Jaffa for nothing.

'Those we met are soldiers of Fu-Ts'ang, they bear the rune of the dragon. We saw the bones of his Prime and others in the pel'tak. But these new ones who came through the Ring of Stars, the alligator-heads, the Varana orak'tar, bear the mark of a skull on a cross. One you think is Fu-Ts'ang is with them, but if he is their leader or their captive, we don't know.'

'And neither do they.' she added, cocking her head in the direction of the Jaffa camp. 'We let them think the Varana slew their god, and they will slay many of each other before they learn their error. Maybe some will go to Fu-Ts'ang, maybe some will stay with our "goddess". Then we slay those who survive, or just escape through the Ring of Stars while they are busy. Better they slay each other than us.'

In reply to Hilda (msg # 922):

Kaspar turns towards Hilda - and for a few moments it seems more like he's looking through her - but then you visibly see his focus center on Hilda.

"Fine. Vee'll keep running the op ... on your say-so." he says in a calm, flat almost-monotone, "But if I suspect the tiniest hesitation to obey, or even a hint of betrayal, I vill order the American to put a bullet in the brains of as many Jaffa as he can. And, if vee're to believe his record, that vould be tvelve kills in 30 seconds. I rather doubt that, though, as not even our Spetsnaz snipers are that good."

'It was your old plan. And I care not for the Jaffa.' Hilda returned with a shrug.