Stepping through the wormhole, SG-X2 finds itself on the exact same beach shown by the MALP image.

The data from the MALP had indicated that the diameter of the island was just under 300 feet, with the gate in the middle of the island. It had an elevation of 7.5 feet. The island wasn't perfectly round, though, and there wasn't any sign of a fringing coral reef around the island. There could still be one; just none of it broke the surface of the water.

It wasn't too hot, around 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Humidity was tolerable, but there was no breeze. That was to be expected considering the time of day.

Based on arc of the horizon, the planet was slightly smaller than Earth and had .92 gravity. However, it had a 33-hour day, and it was just past noon. It clearly fell within the Goldilocks zone of the sun, which was G3-V main sequence star.

Other than the gate, the only anomaly was the ring of stones about 5 feet from the water's edge. They were all irregular in shape (as opposed to being spherical, for instance, or smooth) but about the same size--maybe the size of a pumpkin, depending on how much was buried in the sand. There were 12 of them, spaced reasonably equidistant from each other.

The only tracks in the sand were those made by the MALP's wheels.

It was both wonderful and eerie.

"Once more into the breach," Jason muttered as he stepped through the gate. There was a momentary sense of moving really, really fast and then he was out the other side. He immediately did a tumble roll to the left and came up crouched down on one knee.

He'd never heard of that maneuver actually having any benefit, but it felt right, and took him out of the line of sight of any potential threat.

~There aren't any stairs...~ he thought.

Kyle stepped through, blinking and shaking his head as he appeared. His attention was immediately caught by the ring of stones and he headed in their direction, dropping to his knees by the nearest one and examining its surface.

Karen had followed Bjorn through the gate. She took up the right side, scanning the area. She turned and watched Kyle and moved to make sure he had cover. "Careful Kyle, don't need a mermaid popping out and snatching you." Karen joked as she moved to stand next to him. "Sundial?" She murmured as she looked at the stones.

 Lizzy came through and quickly looked around to get her position, she did see the stones as well.  There wasnt much here, there must be more to this she also headed over to the stones as well and took a look.

Coleman brought up the rear. He saw the doc and scientist already gawking at some stones that looked quite like a fire ring to him. Still, alien planet, so who knew?

"Ok you two be careful about that fire ring. God knows what purpose it serves here. Bjorn and Stewart, let's get this boat down by the water so we can use it if and when we need to. We can look into the water while we are at it, to see if anything is interesting. "

Coleman finds a decent spot on the boat to help move it.

Jackie lands on the other side regaining her composure as she screams with childlike glee in the wormhole.

The stones were spaced equidistant from each other in a ring around the whole island, down by the water. They were too far apart to ever contain a fire, which, in any case, would have covered the whole island.

Kyle examines the rock closest, essentially straight ahead towards the water. It appears to be volcanic rock, which would be consistent with the possible formation of the island. It also appears to have been subjected to a lot of weathering.

Other than the spacing, which probably isn't something that would occur naturally, the only oddity is that there is a rune carved onto the outer side of the stone. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that it matches one of the symbols on the stargate.

Kyle pointed the symbol out to Karen, who was hovering over him a bit.

"Let's see if the others have similar markings. This one is the same as one of the glyphs on the stargate. Not sure if it's in the dialling sequence for here, one drawback of the Earth setup is that it's not quite so obvious unless you watch the chevrons lock very closely during dialling."

He trotted over to the next rock to check it out. Were the symbols on the side facing the stargate or the sea side... or both? What sequence were they in? So many questions. Volcanic rock, certainly, but they seemed to have been placed rather than the island having weathered itself a row of teeth.

ooc: oops, misunderstood the description. :D

Once the still uninflated boat is basically next to the water, Coleman turns his attention to the stones and what the more brainy focused people were up to.

"What if that circle of stones is, itself, a sort of gate? Or maybe a dialing device. Either way it seems like the way to dial would be to run around touching or pushing each symbol of the address."

Coleman does a quick count of the stones to verify that there's the right number for a typical gate.

 Lizzy looked at the stones as well checking for gate markings as well, she thought Coleman was right that the stones was a DHD. She would check if his theory was correct as well, by checking the stones and their number as they circled the small island.

There are 12 stones, more or less arranged like the numbers on a clock. A clock's numbers, on the other hand, merely represent cardinal directions and logical subdivisions of a circle.

You find that all 12 stones have a symbol craved into the side facing out to sea, and all of them are represented on the stargate.

Remember, you can dial home only because you know the Point of Origin symbol for this gate. That was determined by the MALP transmitting an image of the gate and then comparing it to Earth's stargate--the only symbol that didn't match was the PoO.

None of the 12 symbols on the stones are that PoO.

As Lizzie looks over the stones, she realizes that every other one matches the six that were dialed for this gate.

Also, keep in mind that the strange triangular DHD for the globular cluster is sitting just off to the front and side of the stargate. Without the DHD, you wouldn't be able to dial back to Earth... well, probably not. You might be able to do it manually with power from the MALP.

Kyle scampered around, making sketches and taking photographs of the stones. They weren't of themselves a DHD, there was one of those present. That, hopefully, did have the PoO symbol on it (he checked in passing).

So, what did these other 12 symbols represent? Markers, suggestions as to places to go? Perhaps the PoO for other stargates that could be visited from this one?

Or primitive renditions by someone who worshipped the stargate without understanding what the markings on it were for?

Karen wandered around the stones. "Very interesting." She says to no one in particular before stopping by their gear. "Maybe we should take some samples of the rocks as well as the water here." Karen suggests as she scans the horizon.

Jason has been keeping watch on the surrounding waters, half expecting a giant squid or something to suddenly pop up out of it. Flying sharks, maybe? Mermaids! That would be awesome!

He circles the island as he does, making note of the symbols on the rocks.

"Six of these match the coordinates that brought us here," he comments speculatively.

"You'll also notice that they are in the same sequence that we used to dial this planet. Doesn't it follow then that the remaining six are another gate address? And they should be in the correct sequence already."

"This one equates to the X symbol we use. So, the one to the left or the right should be the first symbol in the sequence, and should follow the same order we used. Thus, clockwise."

"If it is supposed to be a gate address, I'd say the one to the right starts the new sequence. It follows logically, since you have to get here first in order to dial the next sequence. Of course, the Alterans could have made it hard and gone counter-clockwise."

"Other than that, there's nothing here but sand. As the sun moves across the sky, the gate will provide some shade, but we can't even look forward to a tropical sunset because there's no scenery!"

"Best bet is, follow the sun," said Kyle.

"But if one direction doesn't work, just try the other... But, why a waypoint? Any gate can dial any other one anyway. Are all the symbols on the DHD?"

As the thought struck him he jumped up and scampered over to check, muttering to himself.

"Good eye. Any chance we can get control of this MALP to try to send it through if we can manage to pen this other address? Seems like we could try clockwise, then counterclockwise, then shift by one each way... that's only four combinations."

"Apparently, Colonel," Jason replies, "you never gave an indication that you wanted to drive, so they gave the MALP controller to me."

"It'll go wherever we send it. Not sure about going through a stargate, though. Whether we can receive the image it transmits, that I'm not sure about. I don't think anyone ever anticipated that an SG team would send a MALP through a second gate and therefore need to receive the signal."

"Karen, did they give you an app for your computer that could do that? Or maybe even your cell phone?"

 Lizzy listens to the others and also agrees with some of what Jason said. Lizzy then replied," Yes we could dial the other symbols, maybe this goes to a special gate? Another gate on the same planet maybe underwater?" Lizzy will check all the symbols on the stones and match them on the gate and DHD. Lizzy will check her laptop to see if she could set up to receive signals from the MALP.

"Yeah, I don't like driving those things. Always feel like I'm looking down at the controller and not paying attention to my surroundings.

I guess we at least have something to report during our scheduled check in, which isn't all that far away. Maybe they can transmit a program for monitoring the MALP, if we don't already have one."

All 12 symbols on the rocks are on both the stargate and the DHD.

Presumably, the point of origin symbol is the same for dialing back to Earth, which is the one symbol on this stargate that isn't on the SGC's stargate.

Lizzy has the same app on her computer that Karen has. It was meant to be used if you sent the MALP into a cave or ruins or a building.

" an extra symbol could be same planet or further distance, like different galaxy. Or, less probably, different dimension like the fourth. "

Jackie responds.

Karen pulls out her cell. "I know they added an app to my phone. They mentioned adding one to the laptops, so I assume everyone got it." She say to Bjorn. "While ya'll do that, I can take water samples if you want?"

"Sure. Let's give this a try. If the regular 7 symbol addresses don't pan out, we can start trying to figure out longer addresses. But at least by the time it is time to dial back we can have the basics checked out so we can update the General."

Kyle was at the DHD.

"Ready with the MALP?" he checked before trying the mostly likely, to his mind, sequence (moving in the direction of the sun around the stones).

"Other than knowing that we have the correct address for somewhere," Jason says, "if we send the MALP through, we can't retrieve it without going through ourselves."

"It'll transmit an image of what's on the other side, which we'll be able to see on their computers. Just remember, the Colonel and I don't have computers with is."

"Should we check in with SGC first?"

"You want I dial home first?" asked Kyle.

He was getting to know these military types. Always by the book. Things done in sequence. Made sorta sense, but when there was so much to explore, to be curious about... well, sometimes they seemed to be dragging their feet.

"We won't be able to retrieve it, but we should be able to identify the point of origin symbol on the other side, just like the SGC does. Then if everything looks kosher, we can always go through and get the MALP back.

With that in mind, I think we should at least check out the most obvious possibilities first so that we have something significant to report when we dial home. Besides, the General said that if we didn't find anything significant, we'd be heading back on that dial home, so I guess something to convince him to let us keep looking would be worthwhile.

I'm open to other opinions, though, if anyone disagrees."

 Lizzy kept looking there was something they where missing maybe, but yeah she didnt know alot obout the stargate itself and how it worked but couldnt they have one that wasnt on the main system she thought. " I say we do as much research we can and get proof possibly that there is more to this planet before we contact home without anything we will head back, if we have something we might be able to let them have us try to see where else we can go."

 Lizzy was glad her computer was set up as well to get feed from the MALP.

At Coleman's prompt, Kyle dials the supposed address, and as soon as he enters the Point of Origin symbol, the gate activates.

A moment later, the 'pool of water' that's the event horizon.

"Well, that's very interesting... I seem to recall the chances of a random address working are pretty dang low, so this must be intentional. Let's get the MALP through and see what's on the other side, shall we?"

"That was rather anti-climactic," Jason says, as he directs the MALP back through the stargate.

"It never occurred to me that it was a random address. I thought, because the address for this gate was on the rocks, that the other symbols were also an address."

Karen gets water samples while the team gets the MALP setup. She finishes and rejoins them just as they activate the gate. "Whoa." Karen whispers before she looks at Coleman. "I agree, Sir, quite low probability." She slips the vials of water into bio-hazard bags, and then back into the bag she pulled them out of. "Maybe this site is like a rest stop or way station? Or a place to come to meditate? Or get away from stress for a short time?" Karen ponders out loud as she looks at the gate.

"Oh, I didn't mean to imply that it was random; I meant that the chances of it being a correct gate address if the symbols were meant to point to something else were extremely low."

 Lizzy had her computer linked to the app with the MALP to get readings from it. " Ok all set I have green for all levels and ready to display. Yes I think you are right Karen this may be a meditation point or a place where they can see who is coming and prepare for their arrival?"

"If I were making something like this, I'd have the gate at the other end set up to only accept connections from this one gate, or a limited selection of gates. Otherwise, there's little point in having this atrium area.

Still, the MALP will hopefully reveal something interesting about the other place. And if we're being watched, somehow, they should already know that the MALP is just a means for us to safely venture forth, so, if they aren't inherently hostile, they should leave it alone, I guess."

The MALP trundles through the wormhole, and arrives on the other side almost instantly. Within a few seconds, Lizzie and Karen are picking up the MALP's transmission.

The image that appears shows the stargate sitting on a stone platform. In the background, you can see large stone statues that resemble those back on Easter Island on Earth. As the MALP's camera swings around to show the gate, you think you saw one of the statues move.

After the MALP confirms there's a DHD there and transmits the view of the stargate so  you can compare the symbols, the camera swings back around and you can see the 'statues' again. This time you can definitely tell that they are moving. You can see maybe two dozen of them, and they all seem to be moving. Their movement seems rather slow and ponderous, as if they really were statues that were walking.

Unlike Easter Island, these 'statues' do not look weathered or old, and, in fact, sport a lot of color, particularly in the 'hats' that they are wearing.

Coleman looks over Lizzie's shoulder to see what's going on.

"Hey, those are those big head things from that island. Does anyone know anything about the human culture there? Might be important. Woah... they're moving. Well, let's keep the gate open as long as we can to see what they do... Obviously, if they crush the MALP, they may not be all that welcoming."

"I'm not an expert by any means," Jason answers, "but I did read about Rapa Nui a year or so ago. There is no native human culture there any more. Slavery, tribal wars, and disease wiped them out."

"No one has yet been able to decipher the Rapa Nui language. The last people that knew it were removed from the island and died without ever passing it on."

"Yes, you're right," said Kyle, who'd found Easter Island fascinating the one time he'd managed to get there.

"It appears that resource management wasn't one of their talents. They used up all their trees and were unable to replace them. Then they couldn't build boats to fish."

He looked curiously at the MALP images.

"Yes! The statues - the mo'ai in their native tongue - are believed to have been much more colourful than they are now. They are supposed to depict deified ancestors of the people who made them... aringa ora ata tepuna, they said. They made about 900 between 1250 and 1500 CE. Stories, oral history, say that those people with great divine power could command them to walk - a king named Tuu Ku Ihu moved them with the help of the god Makemake, who is the creator of humanity and a fertility god. That's significant in that the statues were supposed to watch over communities and ensure their food supplies..."

Kyle was almost babbling in excitement... and looked ready to leap straight through the Stargate to investigate further.

Karen shakes her head. "Those things always gave me the creeps." She listens to Kyle and smiles at his enthusiasm.

"Interesting. Can we activate the MALP's communication system? Maybe you can try to communicate with them, Kyle? Perhaps find out if we're welcome to come to visit? We'll, of course, want to update the SGC before we actually head over there, but it seems we at least have something interesting to tell them now."

 Lizzy kept her laptop monitoring the moving Statues, she was amazed she watched and listened to the others. She knew nothing about Easter Island she then watched the video to see what else she could pick up on the Statues and where they where at.

" There are even some stories in the mythology that the statues on earth used to move as well. "

"I think the question here is: how are they moving?" Jason adds.

"Are these things alive? Are they machines? Are they androids? No, that's not the word I mean. Synthezoids! That's it! Synthetic beings that aren't robots or machines."

"Wait a minute. Let me find it... Ah, here it is--the MALP's speaker system. You know, I don't think that's ever been used before. Go ahead, Kyle. Your radio is linked to the MALP now."

"I'm not sure we're going to go there, though. That gate has the same symbols as this one, which means there's no Point of Origin. Well, not that we can determine. So, unless the moai give it to us, we'll be stranded there."

"Check me on that, Karen? Do you see any symbol that's different?"

He transfers the data from the MALP to Karen's computer via wifi.

Kyle stepped up, hoping that he'd remeber enough of Vananga Rapanui - the Rapa Nui way of speaking - to make sense. If, that is, the mo'ai could hear as well as move.

"Iorana."

'Hello' was always a good beginning, and the first thing he tried to learn in any new language.

"Peke koe? Ka ha’aki’aki, ana hanga koe."

IF (a big if) he recalled aright, he'd asked them how they were and if they'd tell him their story, please.

Karen confirms that the symbols on the two gates are identical.


Even as Kyle begins to speak, one of the moai walks over to the MALP and bends over to stare directly into the camera lens.

He (it?) doesn't seem to be startled by Kyle's words.

"The Fifth Race." it says in reply... in English, though it does have an odd accent.

"Greetings. We are the Furlings. Do you wish to visit us?"

 Lizzy is recording the video feed and when the Fifth Race or Furlings spoke, she had to visit these beings, life based on stone? she had to examine these amazing beings. Lizzy says to the group," Now I was not expecting that, they can talk and are intelligent. Sir we must go what we could find out from one of the Fifth race. But also we must contact SGC before we go correct?" Lizzy was still amazed and wanted to meet these amazing beings.

Kyle was surprised. They'd understood! Even better, it appeared that they spoke English. (How come, he wondered, but he'd get to that later.)

"Yes, please. We'd love to come and meet you," he said.

If their Stargate had the same symbols as this one, he reasoned, he could get home by dialling Earth - just as they would from here - even if he couldn't get back to where they were now.

"We are human beings and come from a planet called Earth. When would it be convenient for you for us to come?"

"The Asgard designated us the Fifth Race," Jason said. "Doesn't that mean the Furlings are in touch with them?"

"I'm guessing the Ancients are the First Race. That leaves the Asgard, the Nox, and these Furlings in between us and the Ancients."

"You have arrived at the Entry Point. Do you not wish to take the next step here now?" the Furling responds to Kyle.

"Your machine is clever. It reminds me of the Ancients and the Asgard. No surprise that the Asgard thought  you had the potential to be the Fifth Race."

"Come. You are welcome here."

"I'd be delighted... but my friends want to call back home to Earth to say what we have found first."

He looked round at the others.

"Shall I go ahead? They seem eager to meet us, it seems a bit rude not to take them up on their invitation... You can call home to the SGC and follow."

Maybe not protocol, but hey... he'd asked not just gone straight ahead as he wanted to!

"Surely they would recognize the need to call home before coming through, Kyle."

Then Coleman speaks into the comm system; "Uh, hi. This is Lieutenant Colonel Coleman Hendricks. I'm in charge of this expedition, but, of course, I have a boss as well, who we'll need to check in with before we can proceed. Is your gate on this same planet? My boss is going to want to know that before authorizing us to come visit. Also, do you have any rules regarding visitors that we need to be aware of?"

"Understood, Lieutenant-Colonel-Coleman-Hendricks," the Furling replies, running Coleman's rank and name all together. It isn't clear if he understood that some of it was your rank and some was your name.

"You may call me Bresh. And, yes, we are on this world. However, you can not dial the astria porta here directly. It is only accessible from the gate you are currently at."

"Why would we have rules about visitors? Common sense and come in peace would be inherent, wouldn't they?"

"Yes, I believe those are generally accepted as the norm. However, for example, in the mission debrief for the first contact with the Nox, it seemed that they had an expectation of total pacifism that the team that met with them did not fully understand, and that led to some misunderstanding. I simply wanted to make sure to avoid any similar misunderstandings.

So, Bresh. We'll disconnect the gate and make contact with my superior. We should dial back in short order. Thanks for your hospitality and understanding."

Once the Furlings acknowledge this, Coleman asks everyone to stop transmissions, so that the wormhole will close, then asks Kyle to dial up the SGC so they can report in.

 Lizzy was watching and recording everything on her laptop, she wanted too jump through right away with Kyle as well but her Military side said, we need to follow protocols. Once Coleman said close everything so they could close the gate, she disconnected the signal from her laptop so the gate would close. She was excited meeting a new alien race, she couldnt wait to meet them, one of the 5 races they might have amazing information for us at least she thought.

Kyle did as directed, allowing the first wormhole to close and then dialling for Earth, establishing the link and sending the correct code from the GDO.

"SGC, this is SG-X2 reporting in as scheduled. We discovered that this gate is a landing location with another address to get to the main gate. We dialed that and discovered that the other end is inhabited by animated Easter Island face statues. They are able to speak English and claim to be the Furlings. They have invited us to come to visit, but I told them I needed to check in first.

I would advise that we go ahead and visit."

Coleman turns to the others "Please share any of your observations that I failed to report."

"The mo'ai - the Furlings - state that they are elsewhere on this planet, but their gate is only accessible from here not from off-world."

Kyle knew that normally you could only have one gate per planet, he thought it was something to do with the point-of-origin system, but he tried not to think too much about gate tech, it made his head hurt! However, someone might find it interesting that they'd found a way around it.

Jason didn't know what to make of the whole thing. Furlings! He found that hard to believe, but, then, why not?

"The Nox can build stargates, can't they?" he offered. "So why can't the Furlings?"

"As I understand it, if there's more than one gate on a world, one is always the primary. It's probably because of the coordinate system they use. Remember, it's not an absolute coordinate system. So, if you take another gate to that same world, you can't access it until the other gate has been removed and you use the second gate to dial out so that it resets."

"It sounds like the Furlings have just reprogrammed the symbols from this gate to access the other one. Really, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. You'd never dial this gate's address from here! That's why they put the stones around the perimeter... to tell you that!

Karen was a little disappointed at not being able to head straight over, but her military training kept her rooted to her location. She nods in agreement while listening to Bjorn. "That's how I've come to understand it too Bjorn. And that's not a bad idea. It'd be nice to implement something like that back home. An added layer of protection as it were." She starts to wander, back and forth, watching the feed on her phone.

Jackie also disconnected her laptop. When the order was given to close.

Once everyone has had their say, Coleman addresses the SGC again; "Ok, General, can we head over to the other location? Everyone here is obviously pretty excited at the prospect, but we wouldn't want to go ahead without your authorization and letting you know where we'd be."

===BEGIN COMM: "The Furlings are one of the four races that formed an alliance. How much knowledge they have compared to the Ancients and the Asgard is an unknown, but if they can reprogram a gate, then it must be pretty extensive," General Hammond replies.

"Unfortunately, we don't know anything about the Furlings, so we don't know if what you saw is really them. I could say I'm a Furling but that doesn't make it so."

"I think the risk compared to the potential benefit is acceptable. You have permission to go visit them. Just be careful. As in all missions, if we don't hear from you for a few days, we will probably put a ban on travel to that gate."

"Good luck." :END COMM===

"Great, I guess we're set." Coleman says as the gate home closes, "Ok, let's dial these 'furlings' back up and see if we can meet them. With those big heads, they gotta be pretty smart, right?" Coleman grins.

"You know, I know you all are super eager to meet these beings, but I'd sure feel most comfortable if Bjorn and I went through first while the rest of you monitored the MALP for a bit before coming through. If there is a trap or something, maybe they'll spring it on us and you guys can get back home safe..." Coleman looks at Bjorn; "Sorry, SGT; Rangers lead the way. Hooah."

"Absolutely, sir!" Jason agrees.

"Ready when you are. Do we want to see if the MALP image has changed first?"

"Personally, I don't see the point. If the Furlings are so super-smart, they can fool the MALP in their sleep."

Karen gives a nod of acknowledgment. "Yes, sir. Though, do try to be safe you two. Don't want it getting around you were rescued by a couple of 'flyboys' and medic 'squid', right?" She says with a joking smirk.

 Lizzy smiled, yes she wanted too go first but safety was required send the Rangers first then they would go. Lizzy got everything ready for when the gate opened and would wait the specified time to hear back from them after they left.

"Oh."

Kyle managed to package a lot of disappointment and disbelief into a single syllable.

"By all means come along but there ought to be at least one specialist too."

"We're all going, Kyle," Jason responds. "Just some of us are going first... just in case it's some sort of trap."

"That's right. You will be holding the gate open and watching. I expect that if there is a trap that they plan to spring quickly, a minute or two will suffice to determine that. If it seems clear, then I will say so, and you'll hear it via the MALP."

 Lizzy would be the senior officer once they left, she said," Very well Sir I will wait 2 minutes then wait for your signal, we will be monitoring the MALP sir."

Kyle dials up the secondary gate again, connection with the MALP is re-established, and the view remains the same. One of the Furlings is standing within the camera's view.

Jason and the Colonel step through the gate and out the other side.

"Greetings again, Earthers... or do you prefer Tau'ri? I am Ukunakorongamorku, which roughly translates as 'he who guards the stargate'. But you can just call me Uku," the Furling says in a deep and gravelly-sounding voice.

"Welcome to Rapa Nuiapu. Will the others be joining us?"

As you look around, you can now see details that you 'missed' before. The Furlings all seem to be wearing top hat-like hats (without brims) of different colors, but you soon realize that there are only six solid colors: red, blue, green, orange, purple, and black, all in solid colors and otherwise all identical in shape/form. Uku is wearing a black hat.

Even with the MALP, you didn't get a good sense of scale. Uku is 20 feet tall! As near as you can tell, all of them are of identical height. Other than size, the most striking feature is the large eyes.

You next realize that they have large heads, though tall and long rather than wide, but they are as wide as the long torsos. The heads seem to be about 8 feet long, the torsos also 8 feet long, and the legs a short 4 feet long. It explains why they appear to walk like 'statues'... somewhat awkwardly.

They also appear to have somewhat short arms... they just don't appear to hang down far enough.

"Yes, the others will be coming along. And we generally go by 'Earthlings', I suppose. Though we also hear Tau'ri plenty. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Coleman Hendricks. Lieutenant Colonel is my rank, Coleman is the name given to me by my parents, and Hendricks is a family name. I can be referred to by any of them. And this is Staff Sergeant Jason Bjorn; his name is of a similar structure.

I was wondering when was your last contact with the Asgard?"

"I believe the... alders... were in contact with the Asgard 7 cycles lunar ago," Uku replies, "but I am not sure. It is not my function to record data such as that."

"Now that you have joined us, what do you wish to do? That way, I will know who to direct you to."

"Well, our mission is to make peaceful contact with other worlds in hopes of cultural and technological exchange.


Give me a moment to signal my compatriots and we'll be ready to go to whomever you believe is the best for us to meet."

Coleman signals the others who have not yet come through the gate to go ahead and come through.

Kyle wastes no time in bouncing through.

"Hello. Thank you for letting us come to visit you."

Karen chuckles and follows Kyle through. "Hello. I'm Staff Sergeant Karen Stewart. Nice to make your acquaintance."

 Lizzy giggles, shakes her head as well and follows Karen through the gate. Once on the other side she is amazed at what she sees and how big they are. Lizzy smiles and then also introduces herself," Hello Lt. Doctor Elizabeth McKeon it is wonderful to meet you, and learn more about your culture." Lizzy was excited to be part of the group to first meet a new alien race.

"Uku, this is the rest of my team. Kyle McGuinness here," Coleman gestures towards Kyle "is our cultural expert, so he'll have plenty of questions, I'm sure."

"Greetings, Kyle, Karen and Lizzy. Welcome to Rapa Nuiapu," Uku addresses the others.

"I am one of the guardians of the Astria Porta. Since I cannot leave the vicinity of the Astria Porta, I will turn you over to Observer Kunakaragadurgonok for any questions you may have."

Another Furling 'waddles' up at that point. He is wearing a blue hat. Now that you see two of them up close and side by side, you can tell that there are differences between them. They may be subtle, but you can definitely see them.

The voices, however, sound identical.

"I am Kunakaragadurgonok, a Third Degree Observer. Humans have always had difficulty pronouncing our names, so you can call me Kunak."

"As you may have surmised already, we are a very patient species. We are very good at waiting. Those of us wearing purple hats are the Warriors. With nothing for them to fight, they wait until there is."

"The red hats are Teachers. You might say that they are also Learners, as they study problems that arise, work out solutions and then teach them to the appropriate Furling, such as the Builders who wear the Green hats."

"The Excavators wear orange hats."

"A pleasure to meet you, Kunakaragadurgonok," said Kyle, rolling his tongue around the strange syllables.

"So, purple hats for warriors, red hats for scholars, green hats for builders. What is the blue? You were described as an 'observer'...? Does everyone occupy a distinct role in society? And how come you speak English so well?"

Slow down! He was bursting with questions, but needed to give Kunak a chance to respond!

"A blue topa signifies an Observer," Kunak replies. "We maintain a contact with the Asgard. When they reported that there might be a Fifth Race, we downloaded your Earth languages from them in anticipation of meeting your species."

"We have also visited your world in the past. It did not occur to us then that your species could evolve into a Fifth Race. There was potential, but you hadn't reached the necessary level of development."

"Of course each of us fills a specific role in our society. Why would we not?"

"Fascinating... we found... ah... representations of your people on a remote island. It was the local language that I greeted you with before we discovered you could speak English."

He put his head on one side.

"Most people occupy several roles in our society, it's a bit more fluid. Or maybe your classifications are broader... It will be fascinating to study."

He'd not thought about it quite that way before. Did 'academic' roll into 'explorer'?

"Interesting. It is good to hear that you have maintained contact with the Asgard. It seems that the Alterans have disappeared and the Nox are extremely isolationist, to the point of not maintaining any level of contact with the Asgard, at least. Though I suppose the ancient treaty, of sorts, still seems to hold.
I guess, as long as Kyle's done with his questions for you, we should move along, so we can learn more from those who specialize in this stuff."

 Lizzy was watching and taking mental notes as they talked to their alien guests. " Yes I guess I would have two roles, one I am a Military officer, but more importantly I am also a Medical Doctor. I guess I would have 2 hats in your society."

Kyle grinned.

"Or a multi-coloured one. Two hats would be inconvenient."

Karen chuckles at Kyle. "Mini hats on a headband?" She whispers. She looks over at Kunak. "I too would have two. One Military, one medical professional."

"It would depend on what your primary function is," Kunak answered. "Each function can have many areas of focus."

"If your primary function is medical, then that is the hat you would wear. The fact that you have military training would be supplemental."

"We generally know what each of us can do. Even though you wore the medical topa, I would know that you also had military training. For us, that would equate to Warrior training, as the concept of a military does not exist for us, though we are aware that others have it. We have never had the need to create a military force. Our Guardians are sufficiently capable of dealing with any enemy that seeks to conquer us with force."

"Interesting! Resisting the Goa'uld, not to mention Replicators, without an organized military to coordinate the efforts seems like a monumental task, at least without taking the Nox approach of just staying hidden. Even the Asgard rely on their military for that purpose."

"Yeah, it'd make you and I unemployed!" Jason quipped.

"Replicators? I thought they were only in the Asgard's home galaxy?"

"Well, they did try to infest our galaxy, perhaps they've made it here as well; I really don't know for sure if they've had to resist either of those enemies, or any other major threats for that matter. I was mostly just surprised at the total lack of an organized military!"

 Lizzy smiled and was taking notes, she replied to Kunak, " Yes I am primary Medical but warrior trained and may I ask you said Guardians do they guard the Gate or watch the skies do you have a planetary defense?" Lizzy was going all science and gather information and she really wanted to do a medical exam of one as well, she wondered what made them tick.

" I would also have two hats. military and Tech. Possibly a third I am still not one hundred percent how you organize your hats. "

"It is simple, really. We decided that all tasks could be placed into one of eight categories," Kunak responds.

"Once that was determined, then whoever had primary training in one of those categories, that was the hat he wore. Eventually, cross-training fell by the wayside. Secondary, tertiary, and quaternary tasks can be shared, though."

"Interesting cultural development track. Does your race have some guiding objective or is it simply survival and continuance? I think we humans currently fall into the latter, but we certainly aspire to more."

Karen is casually wandering around, still close to the group but kind of exploring.

"I suppose it is the latter," Kunak answers. "If, by the former, you mean are we out to save the galaxy, then the answer is definitely no. We have been known to help people, but after what happened on Rapa Nui, we have avoided helping, though there are a few exceptions."

"A bit of guidance is all we offer now. And we keep our presence to a minimum. Otherwise, we exert too much influence and alter that world's path... or destiny, as you might say."


Meanwhile, the others are simply wandering around, observing what is going on. Most of what you see them doing seems pointless or meaningless to you. Two of them are building something apparently large, but it seems only part way done. You can't quite tell what it is going to be. Possibly a building...

The Furlings all seem to be aware that you are there, and they make it a point as they move around not to step on you... though that might be rather difficult since they don't life their legs high enough to actually do that.

Karen gets to a place where two Furlings are standing over a large hole in the ground. They are conversing and keep glancing down into the hole.

One of them looks at Karen, and then addresses the other one. His reply seems to be in the negative.

The first one replies and then turns back to Karen.

"Gorovoronor has fallen down into the pit. He is stuck and cannot extract himself. We are too large to go down there. We have been discussing how best we might assist him. Perhaps you might be able to do so better than we can, being you are much smaller than we are."

Karen peers into the hole before turning to face the group. "Sir! Small problem that we can possibly help with over here." She shouts. "One of their guys is down a hole. We can lower me down and I can see what needs to be done to get him out?"

Kyle loped over.

"Sure, I'll help. Are you good at holes? If not it's a standard part of archaeology, I could easily scramble down."

"For sure. Help them out, of course."

Karen smiles at Kyle. "Oh, I'm good. Part of my training was this kind of thing." She looks back down the hole. "Though, another pair of eyes is always helpful. Plus, you might think of some other way to get him out." Karen gives Coleman a nod before looking up at the Furling who spoke. "Give us a moment to prepare, and then we'll be ready." She looks at Kyle and winks. "Let's get ready to go spelunking."

 Lizzy walked around and just took everything in, when she heard one fell, she instinctively responded," Is he injured make sure he isnt injured before you try to move him." Lizzy was a Doctor first and always it was her job to keep the others in good health and repaired from damage.

"Really? You think we can move one of them?" Jason quipped.

"So, these Furlings don't have any levitation powers? Or telekinesis? Or teleportation?"

"How about anti-gravity?"

He looked around to see if there was anything that could be used as a crane. The first thing that he thought of was what the Builders were building with. They were using some sort of device that appeared to fabricate the material in the exact shape they needed it, though he couldn't tell how sophisticated the shape could be. It made him think of a 3D printer.

Could it make a rope? Lots of rope?

"We can at least investigate the situation, then try and find a way to help..." said Kyle, standing on the edge of the hole looking down.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice of a dimly-remembered professor said something about not standing on the edge of a trench, get in or stay away!

Karen nods at Lizzy. "I'll make sure there are no injuries before we attempt to get him out of there." She looked up at the Furling that spoke. "How did he fall? Was it straight down, or did he fall sideways?"

  Lizzy replies to Karen," Ok very good." Lizzy then thought about something and said to the Furlings," Can you build something large enough and strong enough to pull him out of there, we could use a pully system too lift him out or get him where he can get out on his own?"

The hole appears to be about 60 feet to the Furling, but could be deeper past him. It's only about 20 feet wide and maybe 70 feet long. You can the edge that gave way under the Furling's not inconsiderable weight.

The Furling tumbled down into the hole and wound up getting wedged in sideways, head down.

"It will take awhile to build what you ask," Kunak says in response to Lizzy's request. "Would it not be easier and quicker to just use two or three of us to pull him up?"

"We would have to make rope or chain to do that. Our concern was that if we were able to rope one of his legs, we might pull off the leg trying to get him up. The best course would be to tie the rope around his middle. Barring that, around both legs."

"We are not small enough nor nimble enough to climb down there. Gorovoronor is in no immediate danger of suffocating or starving but he might be injured."

"Are one of you able to climb down there?"

Karen listened to the Furlings. "I'm able. I'd recommend the chain, so I'll need that."

Coleman continues to observe, leaving the actual rescue effort to the expert (Sgt Stewart). He ponders how this species would go about performing this rescue if his team didn't just happen to be here. It seems to him that a race old enough to be one of the alliance of four would have to have the means to handle something this trivial. Perhaps they could, as suggested, build something suitable but since it would take longer than just utilizing the smaller size of his team. Maybe. It seems more likely to be some sort of test. Either a test of our empathy and general helpfulness or a test to see how gullible we are seemed to be the most likely, though alien minds do not always think in the same way.

"Kunak, is your physiology as it appears, akin to stone? Did you evolve on a planet with lighter gravity by any chance?"

 Lizzy smiled and replied," Oh yes that would be great to pull him out." When Karen volunteered to go, it made the most sense she was the Pararescue of the group.

 Lizzy would ask," Do you have a doctor available, or may I study you to see how I could possibly help you recover from injury?"

One of the Builders starts manufacturing chain with what appears to be some sort of 3D printer, though it's 'printing' in metal.

"No, we are not made of stone. It is merely the appearance of stone developed as a method of camouflage for survival," Kunak replies.

"We are rather dense, however, due, in part, to the 1.3 of your Earth gravities. The rest is probably due to our heavy mineral diet."

"We do not have a Doctor hat. We do not get sick and we seldom get injured. If we do, a Teacher will examine the problem and then work out the solution."

"You may examine any one of us, Lizzy. I do not know if that will help, however."

Kyle was observing the interactions, quite fascinated by what he was learning of Furling society.

"Well, while you guys work on getting this poor guy out, I'm gonna take a look around."

Coleman starts walking around a bit, just seeing what was going on just out of eyesight of where they were working on extracting the Furling.

 Lizzy smiled and was excited to try an examine an alien species. Lizzy was excited and said," Yes I would love to examine one of you, one to help your friend if he is hurt, and just to understand more about your amazing race." Lizzy got her medical bag and gear and asked," Where should we conduct the examination?"

As Coleman begins wandering around, looking at everything, he realizes that no one is attempting to prevent him from going anywhere. He's free to go wherever he wants and look at whatever he wants.

About this time, you all begin to realize a few things. First of all, there does not appear to be any genders... certainly no distinction between them.

Second, there are no young ones... assuming you could recognize such.

Third, they aren't all the same height, but at around 20 feet tall, it's hard to see a difference of a few inches as they move around.

Fourth, they aren't wearing any clothes, though everyone wears a topa. What you at first mistook as clothing is just paint on them... clearly meant as decorative. No two patterns seem to be identical.

You see at least one Teacher wearing a vest with several small pieces of equipment hanging off of it. There do not appear to be any pockets.

Likewise, the Builders and Excavators appear to be wearing tool belts.

Two of the Builders have stopped building the structure they had been working on and have started using the 3D printer to make a long chain. It does not appear that both of them are needed, but it does seem to go easier and quicker with both of them.

Another Builder seems to be making... food?

"So, Colonel, do you want me to climb down and assist Karen?" Jason asks as he helps get the ropes from the MALP.

He glances around as he works.

"I don't think the Furlings are hostile, sir, but even if they were, I'm not sure we'd be any good against them. I haven't really seen any significant tech, but there must be a reason they are one of the Four Races. And apparently they have tweaked their stargate."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:55, Tue 28 Sept 2021.

"Don't head down until she has a chance to assess, but, yes, help her, of course."

Coleman approaches and takes a closer look at the food production... they said they had high mineral content in their food... so this could be... interesting.

Karen helps Bjorn with the ropes and gets herself set to rappel down to Gorovoronor. She walks around the hole looking for the best place to put her anchor point. Once she finds it, Karen places the anchor point and runs the rope through it, making sure to keep it even and untangled. She positions the rope along her body and takes a few steps backward. Karen looks around the group. "Well, here I go."

Like Karen, Jason ties off the belaying ropes to one of the two Excavator Furlings and tosses the other end down the hole. He then fastens the rope to his rappelling harness and cautiously edges his way over the edge and begins descending.

"Colonel, I'm guessing the Builders will know how strong to make the chain and how long it needs to be," he says over the vest mic to the radio. "We'll probably also need someway to fasten the links together to secure it around Gorovoronor."

"We'll let you know when they can lower it... once we assess the situation."

As he drops down next to Karen, he says to her:

"Hope we're not going to need explosives to get him loose. Wonder how well he can withstand a blast."

Kyle lurks around the top of the hole. Like most archaelogists he knows his rope-work, but the others appeared to know more about rescues.

At the bottom, Karen chuckles as she unties herself. "Since they're not made of actual stone, he'd probably take it only slightly better than us?" She says looking at Bjorn with a playful smirk.

((OOC: Sorry Bjorn! I should have clarified that she was on the bottom.))
This message was last edited by the player at 19:15, Wed 15 Sept 2021.

"I guess it depends on how thick and tough their skin is," Jason semi-agrees with Karen.

"I wonder what they were digging for? For that matter, how were they digging? I didn't see any excavating tools or machines."

"Hey! Don't take off your ropes! We don't know how far down this goes or how unstable it may be!"

He uses the ropes and the wall to move over closer to the downed Furling.

"Hey, Gorovoronor! Can you hear me? Are you still alive?"

Whether or not he gets a response, he begins studying the situation up close.

 Lizzy will go too a room and do a thorough examination of the volunteer Furling. She will do and check everything and record and take notes on everything she finds.

Karen and Jason find that Gorovoronor has fallen on his side, at roughly a 45-degree down angle, tightly wedged in between two outcroppings of rock.

"I believe I am okay," he replies when asked how he feels.

"It's a case of leverage. Because of the way I am wedged in, I cannot use my own strength to free myself. Had you not come along, the others would have had to dig down beside me to free me."

"This way, you can fasten chains around me and the others should be able to haul me up. It may require you chipping away at the rocks to free me. Do you think you can do that?"

Lizzy soon finds that examining one of these Furlings isn't going to be as easy or as helpful as she thought.

First of all, they seem to have two hearts... at least, she's detecting two heartbeats.

Their skin is so tough and thick and 'mineralized' that she can't get a pulse, nor can she get a reading on oxygen levels. She also realizes that she'd have a hard time if not impossible using a hypodermic needle on them, even if she knew what to give them.

Respiration seems rather shallow and skin temperature is only a few degrees above the ambient temperature of the air.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:34, Tue 28 Sept 2021.

 Lizzy took notes and tried to any readings, their skin was hard and she couldnt get any blood or anything. Lizzy was baffled by the results and wish she could do more tests but she doesnt have the equipment here to do them.

Karen nods. "Glad you're not injured Gorovoronor. We can absolutely do that for you!" She says brightly as she starts to maneuver around, looking for areas to chip away.

Seeing the doc doing an examination, and the medic and Bjorn down the hole, Coleman figures on double-checking on the soft sciences guy.

"Hey Kyle, how are things going? Doesn't it seem weird that the Furlings are anything but furry?" Coleman winks.

"Hey, Kyle!" Jason says to the archaeologist over the open radio mic. "You got a rock hammer in that duty bundle? We're gonna need it down here. Tie it to the end of the chain when they lower it."

Jason then swings up and over the trapped Furling to see where the rock will need to be chipped away. The hole went deeper, so he didn't want to chip away the rocks until Gorovoronor was secured with the chain.

"Think so," said Kyle, swinging off his backpack and rooting through it for a hammer.

As he rummaged, he responded to Coleman.

"They have an interesting societal structure, very mature. It probably hasn't changed in a long time. I'd like to find out what records they keep, if any."

He dug out a rock hammer and trotted over to the hole with it.

Rather than risk tossing or dropping the hammer down to Jason... in case it missed, Kyle uses a rope to lower the hammer down to him.

Within a few minutes, the Furlings also lower the chain down, and Jason and Karen quickly fastened the chain around Gorovoronor, questioning him about the best way to do that. When Karen explains the way she learned to do it for pararescue airlift operations, he informs her that would be satisfactory.

There sufficient bolts to do that as well.

After that, Jason has Furlings up top pull until there is tension on the chain. Only then does he begin chipping away at the rocks that have wedged Gorovoronor in place. A bigger hammer would have made short work of it but it wouldn't have allowed the finesse that the rock hammer does.

It takes about ten minutes to whittle away at the rock until the Furling is loose. Then the two Furlings up top that are holding the other end of the chain begin backing up, slowly hauling Gorovoronor up out of the hole.

Jason and Karen then climb up themselves.

 With what minimal information she got from her examination she will check the fallen Furling once he is completely out of the hole and safe.

As the fallen Furling emerges from the hole, Coleman says "Great job guys. Now get back up here safely and we can continue our tour and meet some more hats."

Karen unhooks and dusts herself off. "That was fun!" She says with a grin.

Kyle was curious.

"What would you have done had we not been around to help?"

Lizzy examines the retrieved Furling and, with her prompting about anything broken, confirms that he has not been injured. There are a few scrapes on his torso, but being unsure how anything she has might affect his stony skin, chooses to do nothing to treat them... 'do no harm'.

"We had already turned the problem over to one of our Thinkers," the Furling replies to Kyle. "He had already decided on two options when your transition through the other astria porta suggested yet a third. Since there was no immediate danger to Gorovoronor, we chose to wait to see if you would visit us."

"Our other options were to build a crane with a self-fastening strap or to excavate a side ramp downward."

"We have been excavating this naquadah pit mine for several years now without an incident. I suspect the one thing we did not take into consideration was the effect our weight and movement near the edge would have on the geological stability of the stone."

"Thank you," said Kyle.

"I expect either would have worked. So, this is a Naquadah mine? Useful substance, what do you use it for? For us, it's mostly a power source."

"Ah naquadah... the reason for billions of enslaved humans. It's good to see that you have chosen a different approach to its extraction than the Goa'uld did. They were really some jerks about it."

" Colonel, with all due respect. We woild be mining naquadah ourselves if we knew where to mine it. "

Carter stands nearby looking  around.

"Absolutely we would, but we would not use slaves like the Goa'uld do."

" True, not now. But in our past. You know. "

"I'm surprised... or maybe astounded is a better word... that they haven't any better technological development... like artificial gravity... or tractor beams and such," Jason comments.

"I'm just glad that Gorovoronor is all right. Don't know if we could have helped him medically if he'd been injured."

"I wonder how long he was stuck down there? I wouldn't necessarily call them ponderous, but they do seem to have a lot of patience. I can't help wondering if their mindset allows to make quick decisions when they're needed."

"We use naquadah for many things, including building materials and power sources," the Furling that Kyle had been talking to responds.

"You may call me Tok. Your friend is partially correct. We have what you might call advanced technology, but it is not ostentatious. We had no need of cities or huge buildings. We discovered the astria porta early in our evolution, so we had no need of spaceships."

"I see. We have discovered the stargates before we were able to get viable interstellar space ships as well, however, we have since begun development of them because we've encountered issues where such travel was still necessary. For example, if a stargate becomes disabled, stranding someone, or we come under attack by someone utilizing spaceships of their own. Have you not had any such issues? Or do you simply have other solutions to those problems?"

"I suppose you could say we employed alternate methods of dealing with such extra-planetary issues, Tok replies. "For the most part, we've managed to avoid them. For example, it turns out that we're incompatible with the Goa'uld. It's not so much that we're poisonous to them, just that we're biologically unsuited to host one. Additionally, our minds are stronger than a Goa'uld's, so even if we became a host, we would always be dominant."

"We also formed an alliance with the Ancients and Asgard and the Nox. Depending on the circumstances, we came to each other's assistance when needed."

Kyle listened to the conversation. For anyone to score an alliance with the Nox was quite a feat.

"He makes it sound so easy," Jason commented. "I'll be it took years to get to that point."

"So, what else do we need to do, Colonel? I don't think we're in a position to form an alliance with the Furlings at the moment, and I'm not really seeing any technology that could help us defeat the Goa'uld."

Coleman responds to Bjorn; "You're right that we don't have the authority to finalize any alliance, but I guess we should probably figure out who to talk to to see if they have interests in such an alliance. When we get back to the SGC the diplomats are going to want to know; after all they are considered one fo the four great races."

Then he turns back to Tok; "Tok, who should we talk to to determine if we should send diplomats to pursue some sort of alliance? Presumably, someone who will have questions for us to help them determine if it is worthwhile at this time? Due to the nature of our situation in our galaxy we do have some secrets, but, for a large part, we're an open book, er, if you know what a book is. Anyhow, what I mean is that we have few secrets; we're willing to answer most questions."

"I suppose it all depends on what each side can expect from an alliance or what each side wants," Tok answers.

"With the Ancients, the Asgard and the Nox, we mostly shared ideas. None of us really needed assistance in defense. I'm not sure we could help you in that area anyway."

"Your diplomats should talk to Tamanamanar and Rabadanabak, our two most prominent Teachers and Thinkers."

 Lizzy took samples of what she could and listened to the conversation and then added," Yes we need to figure out how we can be allies or at least good friends, and as an old teacher told me knowledge is power. An information exchange would be wonderful but we need to figure out what you would like from us in this alliance."

 Lizzy was amazed that they discovered one of the old races of the Universe and could possibly be friends and even allies with them was a huge boost for Earth. Lizzy would scan and take samples to do research on the Furlings and if there was anything medically, or science related they could help the Furlings with.

In short order, you are introduced to the two Teachers.

"It is a pleasure to meet you," Tamanamanar says after introductions are made.

"In a way, I believe we have already forged an alliance. You have helped us with a minor problem. At the moment, all we have to offer in exchange is knowledge."

"No doubt you have been wondering why you do not see all that many of us here on Rapa Nuiapu. There are only 39 of us here because this is merely a mining colony. It is not our homeworld, though, technically, we have several homeworlds now. There are only two out here in the globular cluster, but there are 19 in the main galaxy."

"Our population has reached about 52 million across those 21 planets."

"Not even the Alterans or the Ancients could make something out of nothing," Rabadanabak adds, "which is why we mine naquadah. We've learned that deposits of naquadah are more common out here in the cluster than in the main part of the galaxy. We believe this is because the cluster was a late-forming cloud of primordial dust. We do not know why this happened."

"Perhaps, however, there is another project that you can help us with... a potentially mutually-beneficial project."

"We have discussed this with the others," continues Tamanamanar. "Your actions so far, as well as our interaction with you, has convinced us that you are trustworthy and capable of performing this... task."

"One-point-three lunar cycles ago, an object crashed into the planet. We were pretty sure that it was a starship. We sent one of our Explorers to investigate it. He never came back. Something at the crash site killed him."

"Our blood is copper-based, which makes us more vulnerable to powerful electrical shock, such as lightning bolts. We have observed such phenomena at the site, and believe that it may have been the cause of Yagafafamar's termination."

"Would you consider investigating the site for us? Since his death, we have seen no reason to risk another one of us to go down there just yet. We were working on a protective field for that eventuality, though."

Kyle listens hard and makes copious notes.

"Well, absolutely we would be happy to investigate. As for information exchange; I'm not certain that we have much knowledge that would be interesting to you, but we are generally quite open to sharing what we do know. It seems likely that your people know much that my people would be interested in. Many among us value knowledge for the sake of knowing, so even in the unlikely scenario that there's nothing of immediate practical use, I'm sure we would love to know.

So, I suppose we should go check out this crash site. I don't suppose you have a map of the area? That would make planning out our approach easier. Otherwise, we'll need to start with some scouting of the general area."

"As I understand it, you may have far more knowledge about the Goa'uld than we do, even those out here in the cluster that are known as Goa'uld'ra--sons of Ra," Tamanamanar replies.

"The same holds true for the Asgard and the Nox, since neither of those species are capable of hosting a Goa'uld."

"As for a map, it shouldn't be necessary. We are on a plateau, and the crash was down in the valley to the east. There is a natural wash down the side of plateau, so no climbing is necessary. It's precisely 5.4 miles away in a straight line, but that's around 7 miles following the wash and the valley."

"Go see the Builders for the protective energy field generators. Not sure how they'll work for you since they were designed with us in mind."

"Ah, yes, we have had an unfortunate level of contact with the Goa'uld, I hadn't considered how much information regarding them that would give us.

And protective energy field generators sound interesting... hopefully they'll work for us, if only for my personal curiosity!

Hey guys, let's go check these things out."

Coleman signals to the others to head towards the Builders so they can suit up.

On the way he tries to see what his NCOs think of the immediate tactical situation;
"Bjorn, Stewart... what do you think of this task they gave us? Something using a lightning weapon to hurt these guys seems awful similar to those guns the Minotaurs had, doesn't it? Do you think we could be facing something similar?"

"He didn't actually say it was a weapon, but, yeah, does seem like it could be the same principle as the Minotaur's guns," Jason answers. "But those were Ancient technology, weren't they?"

"Doesn't make sense that the Ancient's would attack one of their allies. I didn't get the impression that Tamanamanar thought it was an Ancient ship. Then again, do we even know what one looks like? If it's as big as an Asgard ship, we've got a big Task ahead of us."

"Sure, it could just be an unfortunate accident, but that is the kind of coincidence that I don't trust. And, yes, the Minotaur weapons were Ancient design, but they weren't locked to the Ancient genes like a lot of their tech is; maybe some of that kind of gun was stolen and is being used by someone else? Or, perhaps whoever is on the ship just didn't realize that these Furlings were friendly? But you're right, if what we're walking into is an actual Ancient ship, we could be in for a big surprise here. Regardless, we should definitely observe and think before we act, if only so we can see what kills us before we're dead.

Carter and Dr McKeon; either of you have any ideas about how to defend ourselves against electrical discharge, whether it is from a weapon or just an industrial hazard?"

"Wetsuits."
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 05:44, Tue 21 Dec 2021.

 Lizzy was also taking notes and Lizzy thought their where a few ways to protect against electrical attacks or discharges she would have too see the area first. " Yes make sure we are not conductive and the electrical discharge wont want to hit us."

 Lizzy took the note that their blood was copper based that could be useful in further interactions.

"We didn't bring any wetsuits... did we?" Jason asks. They knew they'd been heading for a small island surrounded by ocean, so it had occurred to someone back at SGC that there might have been an aquatic species to deal with.

"Besides, it'd be more lethal if it gets wet. Maybe drysuit. Have we got any equipment to measure the strength of the electrical discharge? I'm not sure even a suit would protect us from that powerful a strike."

"On the other hand, people have been known to survive a lightning strike."

"Oh! Here's a thought. Over the drysuit, wrap a bunch of wire around us, keep some of it sticking up in the air and the other end dragging on the ground. I'm pretty sure lightning follows the path of least resistance, so the wire would be less resistance than our 'bags of mostly water' bodies."

"I believe they outfitted us with drysuits, since it was uncertain how deep we'd try to go or the actual temperature of the water.

And, yeah, I think I've heard of that sort of grounding, so that's probably a pretty good idea."

"I brought diving gear and can handle myself in the water," said Kyle who was an experienced diver.

"We were considering the grounding wire option, but we needed to determine the  power of the lightning so we'd know what the diameter of the wire needed to be to handle the load," Tamanamanar informs them. "The other problem was that we don't have that much copper on the island. We were now considering alter materials. Naquadah is plentiful, but creating an ionized state that would conduct electricity would make it more volatile, so we had to abandon that line of thinking."

"Our next alternate was carbon. If that is something you wish to try, we can fabricate a carbon wire with a a silicon sheath."

 Lizzy listened and then added," Yes the Carbon wire should hold a lot of electricity and not burn up, the sheath would protect the wearer, that sounds like a great idea, but also Sir I think we should check out the area first, do recon too see what we are up against and I do believe I have a way of detecting how much current we are dealing with. "

"Yep, probably a good idea," Jason agrees. "Need to know the path to the wreck, whether we'll need to do any climbing, check for radiation, that sort of thing."

"You want me to go with Lizzy, Colonel, or are you going?"

"Let's all go; more eyes and brains means a better chance of noticing anything unexpected."

Coleman makes a knife-hand motion, like an old school call to charge, in the direction that the Furlings had already indicated, then starts walking in that direction.

"Hopefully whatever you have in mind will work out, Doctor. We'll want that grounding wire to work, I suspect."

Karen starts to follow Coleman.

" Yes, Carbon and silicon is the way to go. "

Because the initial image seen from the MALP was a beach on a small tropical island, wet suits and air tanks had been packed into the MALP in case the team needed to dive below the water to explore underwater ruins or to communicate with an intelligent aquatic species.

It doesn't take long for the Furlings to make the necessary carbon-fiber cable since both carbon and silicon are fairly abundant minerals where they are.

The wet suits will work to insulate the wearer from any electrical shock but not if it gets wet. Dry suits are used when the water is going to be cold.

Once the wire is made, each member of the team wraps a coil around themselves, sets one end sticking up in the air, and drags the other end on the ground. However, once they start walking, they can pick up the dragging end until they get closer.


After about an hour of prep, the team sets out down into the valley were the wrecked starship crashed.

"Ok, everyone, make sure your grounding wire is dragging and let's spread out about 20 meters apart and keep your eyes peeled for anything unexpected. Once we spot any available entrances, let's regroup and make a plan on how to approach."

"I feel silly," said Kyle, dropping the trailing wire.

"Still, better silly than dead."

He headed off in tha appropriate direction, looking around curiously.

The trail down the valley isn't a path per se but the run off route for the rains that fall. It's based on the density of the material--that which gives way the easiest is the route the water travels.

About halfway down, it makes a switch back when it hits a large boulder. By now, you can see the wrecked spaceship. The switch back leads down to the valley floor and the ship is about a half mile beyond that. It's primarily a disc-shaped ship with the front third of it buried in the cliffside of the valley  and the whole ship is at about an 30^o angle with the back of the ship resting on an outcropping of rock.

After about an hour, you have to revise  your estimate of the size of the ship. It looks to be 3-4 times larger than you first thought. There just wasn't anything near it to give you a sense of scale.

Another half hour brings you to the missing Furling. He's just standing there.

You stop about 50 yards away from him because you can see the crackle of electrical energy surging out from the ship. It's harder to see in the daytime, of course, but easily seen if you are looking for it. It seems to be on some sort of cycle--the surge erupts about every 7-8 minutes.

"I know you haven't had much time to figure this sort of thing out, Doc, but do you think that Furling is still alive? If so we should prioritize getting, er, him? her? it? out of range of the electric zapping. Even if that's all we manage, I'm sure that'd been seen as helpful.

Regardless, though, Carter, you take Bjorn and circle to the left, I'll take Stewart and circle right; McKeon and Kyle, you guys stay here and work on the rescue problem. And everyone try to stay in radio contact; if the interference becomes too great, let everyone know and backtrack so that none of us ends up isolated."

Coleman looks at each of the others, interested if they have anything to add or any objections to raise since he's just operating on default tactics here, but if there are no objections he signals to Stewart and heads off around the right, keeping his distance from the ship itself.

Kyle squinted at the Furling. Did the periodic flickers of electrical energy reach as far as him? If so, the first step would be to move him carefully away, perhaps onto an insultated surface... a blanket, perhaps? Then he could be examined to see what damage, if any, he had sustained.

Although the Colonel's directives were 'reasonable', sort of SOP, Jason couldn't see anything to be gained by it, though he supposed if there was something to find out, that might be the way to find it.

"Got it, Colonel," he responded as he and Carter started circling around to the left.

It certainly appeared as if the electrical discharges were coming from the ship... about ever 2-3 minutes was his guess, although it crackled over and around the ship constantly. He couldn't help wondering if was also inside the ship.

There was something familiar about the electricity, though... he was pretty sure he'd seen something like that before, though he couldn't quite remember when or where.

 Lizzy looked at the situation and before she was even asked she began working on a way to get the Furling out of danger, if it was still alive, she couldn't tell from here. Lizzy then replied," Yes Sir we will get the Furling out no matter what, Ok Kyle lets see what we can do shall we."

 Lizzy would look over the situation and begin to move towards the Furling to find a way to help it.

Karen follows Lizzy to assist the doc however she can.

As near as Lizzy could see, there was only three ways to move the Furling: crane, walk it, or drag it. Since they didn't have a crane, lifting it up was not feasible. Walking it could be done by rocking it back and forth from side to side while shifting one side and then the other side. It was possible two of them could do it, but it seemed like it'd take three or four of them per side.

That left dragging him. They certainly weren't going to do it while he was standing up, so that meant toppling him over. Straps and skids would do the trick, but they didn't have either of them, though those, at least, could be made.

It didn't seem like pushing him over onto his back would injure him, based on what they'd seen so far. Any kind of skid they made would have to be able to withstand the Furling falling on top of it. So, topple him first, then put him on the skid? Or could they make the fall less forceful?

There were plenty of trees around to make the skid from and they had rope.

The problem was then dragging the toppled Furling out of range of the electricity. The two of them might be able to do it, but, hopefully by then, the others would be back.


Carter and Bjorn began circling around the crashed ship. They could only go so far without having to climb up the cliff.

There was no sign of life or movement. Not only was the ship at an angle front-to-back, it was also skewed a bit port-to-starboard, thus it was leaning slightly away from Carter and Bjorn. That's what let them spot the 'hole'/hatch in the bottom center.


Coleman and Stewart, having circled in the other direction, could go a bit farther because of the angle and that the ship had crashed into the end of cliff. The electricity was more pronounced over on this side. It not only seemed to be stronger, but the pulses occurred slightly more frequently.

And that's when they spotted the body. It appears to be humanoid, but it has 4 arms, purple skin, four eyes, and a mane-like golden frill across the head. Even with the frill, it appears as if it's only about 6 feet tall.

It definitely appears dead, though an immediate cause of death isn't obvious.

<on radio>"Hey guys, we have another body here... from a different species."

Coleman turns to Karen; "Do you think we could rush int here and get that body out of the radius of the zapping? Assuming, of course, that it weighs about the same as a human about its same size. If so, I think we should, but you're the one with the training for this sort of thing. I just learned to grab my buddy's pack handle and drag."

"Only if these jury-rigged insulating outfits work," Jason replies. "If it does, then that'll give the others an idea of what they can do to grab the Furling."

As military people, it was their responsibility to put their lives on the line rather than risk any of the civilians. Lizzy and Karen and Carter were all more valuable than Jason and the Colonel due to their training, so Jason hurried over to where the Colonel was.

"That's a really weird-looking creature!" he commented. Looking around, he pointed to an area that a bit sheltered and, as near as he could guess, outside the are of the electrical discharges.

"We can take it over there. Do we want to lift it and carry it? Or just grab legs and drag it? Our suits should protect us from any biological threats but I'm concerned that if we try to drag it, the legs might just break off. On the other hand, what if it's not dead and wakes up when we drag it?"

 Lizzy looked over and then said," Ok we need to build a skid and then slowly using rope lower him onto the skid, how does that sound everyone?" Lizzy would then get to work getting everything they needed for a skid and start construction; she would also figure out a way to use the ropes to slowly lower the Furling down onto the skid once it was completed. Hopefully id they got that far the others would be there to help them pull the Furling out.

"Ah, Bjorn and Carter, good. Ok, how about we improvise a litter and Bjorn and I will run in and get the body on it and run back out with it. That way we avoid furthering any injury, if it is still alive, and can manage to get in and out as quick as possible?"

Coleman looks around for something to use for poles; they can use their jackets or other gear as the bed part, but the poles need ot be long enough that they can hold on both ends with the body in between.

There are a few nearby saplings that could be cut down without too much trouble to form the poles. Otherwise, there's  nothing in the immediate area that could serve.


Both Karen and Lizzie realize that the best way to lower the Furling would be to rig up a sort of crane on a pivot so that as he toppled over, they could be controlling the descent with ropes from the front. Unfortunately, that's not very practical at this time and place with the tools they have.

The next best method is to create a vertical platform that they fasten to the Furling and then they control the lowering of the platform from the back. Again, not particularly practical due to the lack of wood to make the platform. On the other hand, they soon realize that the stone-like nature of the Furling probably makes the platform unnecessary. They just need to tie a pole across his back and use it as the 'platform'.

It occurs to them, as well, that the Furling could possibly shield them from the electrical discharges. Whether that was a good thing or not, they couldn't say.

It'll probably take three people to do it, though--one on each side pole and one on the rope pulling the Furling backwards.

Like the Colonel and Jason, a couple of saplings are available and sufficient for the task, are easily and quickly cut down, and soon the two of them have rigged up a loop of rope attached to the cross pole. Dashing out to the Furling, they are able to toss the rope over the Furling's head, work it down to the right height, and then tighten it up. There's no electrical discharge while they do this, but as they dash back out of range, a bolt strikes the Furling again.


Coleman and Jason also get the job done. With a jacket's sleeves inside out in the inside of the jacket and the poles slide through the sleeves and out the bottom, they are able to run out to the body. They get struck by a lightning bolt once on the way to the body, but their grounding wire and insulated suits do the trick. Carefully moving the body onto the litter, they dash back out, again getting struck by lightning once to no effect.


It takes Karen, Lizzie and Carter a bit longer to accomplish their task, but the Furling is leaned backwards and then slowly lowered, about one foot at a time, to the ground. Tying the two side poles as skids under the cross pole, they are able to drag him out of range with some effort because he's so heavy and the ground is irregular.

"Ok, let's take this guy around to where the others are, so the doc can take a look." and Coleman starts trotting in that direction, assuming that Bjorn was going to follow.

 Lizzy with the Help of Karen and Carter get the Furling down and out of the electrical field. Once it is safe Lizzy will check out the Furling the best she can, still not knowing a lot about their physiology completely.

If Jason is holding the other end of the makeshift stretcher, then he kind of has to follow the Colonel when he starts to trot!

He tries not to stare at the alien being, but it's such a strange sight, he can't really help himself.

He trusts the Colonel not to run over any obstacles that might trip Jason up... since he can't see where he's going while carrying one end of the stretcher.

"Makes me... wonder... what con-... stitutes... death for... these crea-... tures," he manages to gasp out while he runs.

Lizzy examines the Furling now that he's safely away from the electrical discharge but she can find no heart beat... from either heart. Of course, she doesn't quite know how they work in conjunction with each other, so she's not sure if that has the usual significance or not.

She can't help wonder if the electrical shocks stopped his hearts, restarted them with the next shock, stopped them again with the third shock, etc. He could have been struck a dozen times or more. She observed him get struck twice since she got here.


And then the Colonel and Jason arrive carrying another alien on a makeshift stretcher. Kyle is right behind them. Aliens and alien ships aren't his forte.

As they approach the doc, Coleman says "This looks good, start lowering on 3. One.. two.. three." and Coleman lowers his end of the stretcher somewhat slowly so as not to jostle the alien any more than necessary.

"Yeah, Bjorn, I have no idea; I guess it could be anything from the slightest upset to not being over until they've been vaporized with the third shot from a Zat. For now, we should keep an eye on this guy, just in case. We don't know if it's hostile."

Coleman figures that Karen and Lizzy have a system to figure out who to look at and when, so he doesn't disrupt what they're doing.

Coleman turns to Kyle and Jackie; "Ok, so the suits seem to work, at least enough to defend against a couple of waves. I don't know if either of you saw anything interesting, but if you did, definitely feel free to take a closer look. Also, Carter, if you think up some way to stop these pulses, I'm all ears."

Kyle rubbed his nose.

"Could we set up an attractor - like a lightning rod - to keep us safer?"

"Tesla coil!" Jason suddenly exclaims as he carefully lowers his end of the stretcher.

"High voltage but extremely low amperage. That's why you can stand there with all that lightning shooting out of your hands and not be electrocuted."

"That's what's going on here. I have no idea how that electricity is being produced, but I don't think it can harm us. Of course, I'm not quite ready to stake my life on that."

"As for why it affected the Furling, you'd have to ask the Docs about that."

"Different brainwave pattern," Karen suggested at Jason's prompt. "We know so little about the Furlings. It's hard to say how different they are from us and therefore how the high voltage might affect them."

She moves over to look at the alien body, but doesn't touch it. She leaves that sort of examination to Lizzy.

"Thinking back to my physics class if this thing does act like a Tesla coil, then running a conductor from the bowl thing at the top to the ground should render it inert, effectively. I guess some part of the ship must be the bowl thing, if this really is a Tesla coil.
I seem to recall that having more than one person near the thing ended up with both getting hit, but usually one would get more. Maybe an attractor, like a lightning rod, would work like that? That's better than us taking all the hits, for sure."

"You may very well be correct, Colonel," Carter offered. "However, you have a misconception of what a lightning rod is and does."

"Every couple of years, all the latest lightning rod inventions are taken to a test facility in Colorado and put through their paces. To date, none have ever worked in attracting lightning strikes."

"What a lightning rod really does is conduct the electrical energy from a lightning strike into the ground to protect the building and electrical systems within."

"The only known way to 'attract' lightning is to change the potential between the target and the lightning source... which is usually a thundercloud. We can measure it, but we have yet to devise a way to do that effectively."

"Thus, what we are wearing does the grounding but it still doesn't attract the lightning. We just have to soldier through with what we've got."

She, too, moved to visually examine the alien body, attempting to deduce whatever she could about it from appearance alone. She was curious from a scientific perspective, of course, but her training had taught her that a military perspective always came first. So, what sort of threat might a living version of this creature present?

The Furling seems to be dead, but you can't really be sure because you don't know enough about Furling anatomy and biology. It could just be hibernating, or put into a similar type of trance while it heals itself. It's also uncertain if it still has any brain activity.


Observing the alien reveals almost the same thing. It appears to be dead. You can detect no signs of respiration... assuming that the creature breathes. If it has a pulse, you can't detect it.

"Well, if we're as protected as we can get, we better come up with some way to disable this electric pulsing thing. I guess once it's no longer zapping everything, we may be able to get the Furlings to help figure out the whole thing. Perhaps they've even encountered this species before. But, for now, it is pretty dangerous here for the Furlings, apparently.

I don't think I saw any entrances to the ship... did any of you? Seems like there must be one somewhere over near where we found Mr. Four-arms, though. Perhaps if we can get inside we can figure out a way to turn this whole thing off?

Any ideas anyone?"

"Good point, Colonel. Clearly the alien got out of the ship somehow, so we should be able to get in that way," Jason answers.

"At a wild guess, based on reading way too much science fiction, I'd say it's either the ship's power plant running wild or the ship's force field on overload. So, shutting down the power should solve the problem either way."

"That, of course, is if the power plant can BE shut down."

"Agreed; let's go take a look. I assume that Doc and Stewert need to stay here to tend to the patient, though perhaps there's nothing that can be done. Either way, the more hands the better, so everyone who'd like to come help figure out how to get in is welcome to do so."

With that "order" Coleman starts heading back around to where they'd found the four-armed alien's body, to start the search there for the entryway into the ship.

"I'll come," said Kyle, fiddling with his wires checking everything was in place.

The three (?) of you head around the perimeter keeping out of range of the lightning bolts until you reach the area near where the alien body was found.

From there, you can see that there is a large crack in the saucer's hull, running top to bottom and a quarter of the way inward to the hub. About 10 feet to the right of it you can also see that there is an open hatch.

The lightning seems to be coming from the crack in the hull, and it definitely appears to be a lot stronger at the crack.

Ky;e speculated aloud.

"Looks like the lightning results from some damage rather than a defence mechanism. If we can get inside - through the door, not the crack - we might be able to find out more."

He started timing the lighning. Was there any pattern to it that they could take advantage of to run for the open hatch?

At first, Kyle doesn't see any timed sequence to the lightning bolts, but after a minute, he does begin to see a pattern... albeit a small weak pattern. There's clearly a time delay between major discharges. Whatever's causing the lightning takes about 65 seconds to build back up between bolts, though the power is so great that it has to trickle smaller bursts out in between. For whatever reason, there's no rhyme or reason to those. Anywhere from 3 to 12 seconds, a smaller discharge courses across the hull of the ship, only occasionally building up high enough to become a full lightning bolt. Unfortunately, no one has a device capable of measuring that level of power to determine if it'd be lethal or not.

 Lizzy checked both the Furling and the Alien for any signs of life. she will take readings and she what she can figure out about the Alien's biology. " Sir I will stay here, I am getting no signs of life but I don't know once they where taken out of the electrical pulses they might recover I will stay and monitor Sir."

"Yeah, I think so too, Kyle. I'm thinking we won't be able to avoid those smaller zaps entirely, but hopefully, we can rush in between the larger zaps. Let's all download here; only keep the absolute essentials, armor, guns, and, of course, our zap suits. We're going to have to be pretty spry to get up into that ship between those zaps.

Probably one of us should try first, then if all goes well, everyone else can follow.

In fact... that first runner should probably also have a rope tied off to them, so if they go down, no one has to run in there and try to drag them out before the next big one."

Coleman then takes off all of his excess gear and piles it up, then he starts tying some paracord off to his load harness. He hands the other end to Jason.

"Hopefully you won't need this... but don't let go until you're ready to run in too."

Coleman does a bit of stretching and warming up, then sets a timer on his watch for 60 seconds (so it'll alarm 5 seconds before the big blast), then starts it right as a big blast passes and starts to sprint for the door.

Coleman has no problem reaching the open hatch before the next big zap, but Kyle realizes that Coleman's presence seems to have altered the gap between the big zaps... they've quickened by about 3 seconds.


Short of starting some sort of autopsy on the alien, which doesn't seem called for just yet, Lizzie can't really figure out much about this strange life form. It would appear to walk upright--there's no indication that it could walk on all fours/sixes. The hands only have 3 fingers plus an opposable thumb. It has two eyes, one mostly-flat nose, and one mouth. It has what appears to be an ear on each side of its head.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:59, Tue 03 May 2022.

"Interesting," Jason comments. "In that case, I'd better be the one to go last. I'm expendable."

He ties a rope around Kyle in case Kyle gets zapped and goes down--he can then haul him out of the danger zone with the rope.

It made sense for Carter to remain with Lizzie and Karen, not because she was a woman--hell, she was better than he was in most things--but because she was second in command. If things went badly for Coleman, Kyle and himself, she have to decide what to do... try to rescue them or report back to SGC for advice.

Not being party to the decision-making going on on the other side of the zappy-zone, Coleman doesn't realize that this has already been determined, so he shouts out across the distance; "Kyle should come next. We'll almost certainly need his cultural skills to interpret the controls. And it looks like the cycles have quickened, so we need to be sure that it will even be viable for you to come across, Bjorn, before you try. It would be better for you to stay over there in safety than for us to try to drag you in here and resuscitate!"

 Lizzy takes notes on the alien and the Furling, she will monitor them both for anything while the rest were trying to get into the ship. Lizzy will set up a kit just in case she has to go and help someone hit by another powerful zap.

Kyle readied himself then scampered across towards the hatch...

Lizzie makes notes about the alien creature's observable physical anatomy, does her best to estimate the range of mobility of its limbs, as well as the range of hearing and possibly vision based on visible features. She further notes what it's wearing, and realizes as she does so that she has no idea if these aliens have a gender, and, if so, which one this is.

It's obviously not wearing a spacesuit of any kind. It has crossed bandoliers over the shoulder and down across the chest to the belt around its waist. Below that is a short metallic skirt. The bandoliers and belt have a few built-in pouches, plus a few eyelets and hooks. It's wearing no shoes.

It has no pulse and there's no sign of respiration. She now realizes it has four eyes. Two of them were closed and it was hard to tell that's what they were because of the purple skin. The golden mane frames its face and looks to go about halfway down its back.

As near as Lizzie can tell, its skin seems to be somewhat normal--i.e. close to human-like skin--because she sees none of the signs that its like a gator or snake or fish or rhino or elephant. However, after a minute or two of study, she thinks she identifies two areas of burn marks... probably where the lightning bolts struck it.

It also finally occurs to her that she has no idea how long it's been 'dead'. Normal humans can be revived within 7-9 minutes after clinical death. After that, the brain has been without oxygen for too long to remain functional. That's Humans. It could be that these aliens work differently.

Should she try to revive the alien?



Coleman has barely looked around the interior of the alien ship, but then he realizes he's in what could only be an airlock. Both exterior and interior doors are wide open. To the inside, he sees a hallway about 80 feet long but seems to have 3 cross-corridors, including the one at the very end. The sparking lightning provides enough light to see by.


Timing the large lightning bolts correctly, Kyle makes a dash to the opening where Coleman waits. He manages to reach the door just as a bolt strikes the ground about 5 feet behind him.

"Woah, that was close, Kyle. Don't wander in too far without me, just in case there's something nasty waiting for us. Let's time the cycle again and see if it is going to be reasonable for Bjorn to get over here too."

Coleman uses his watch to time the cycle between large discharges through a couple cycles so that he can be relatively certain what the timing is.

 Lizzy will use everything at her disposal to try and revive the alien. She sends to the others on comms," Sir I want to try to revive the alien we dont know if it will be friendly but I have little time, hopefully we can handle the alien and it is friendly."

OOC: assuming I receive that this will be the response.

Coleman responds to the doctor: "Revive it if you can. Carter and Stewart can provide cover, in case it does become hostile. If you can remove any possible equipment and weapons, please do so, but, of course, that is secondary to saving a life."

 Lizzy responded," Yes Sir I agree 100 percent." Lizzy then went through every procedure she knew might work to revive the alien.

Kyle looked around.

"This looks like an airlock - but it shouldn't be possible to have the inner and outer doors open at the same time."

He stuck his head through the inner door and looked down the passegeway in both directions whilst Coleman timed the flashes.

"OK, just looking. I won't wander off..."

The military types at SGC always tended to mother him. What, did they expect him to get into trouble or something?

The other end of the rope was tied around his waist so that if he got zapped on his run, they could pull him into the ship away from the lightning.

He timed the big bolts and then again... and a third time. Satisfied that they were still consistent, even if the time between them had reduced some, he took a track stance, and then as soon as the next bolt cracked, he took off in a sprint for the hatch.

He made it through the hatch with ease, and just in time to hear Kyle's comment.

"That's only in space. No reason for them not both be open at the same time on a planet with an atmosphere," he responded.

"Alright, let's see if we can shut this thing down. I guess usually the power supply would be located in as central and well protected place as possible. The bridge could be anywhere, unless they want to look out a window. Suppo this was made by a fly-boy or a tanker?" Coleman grins and looks at the options. "So, Kyle, if you had a bunch of arms, where would you put the off switch?"

"If they built spacecraft like we do, like the Asgard do, like the Goa'uld do... there will be controls on the bridge and in the engine room. So the first thing is to find where one of those is. I think the engine room is off to the left here..." said Kyle.

"Ok. Let's head that way, then. If you don't mind, I think Bjorn should take the lead and I will bring up the rear. Even so, keep an eye out for any movement and try not to get too distracted by the cultural artifacts, or whatever. We don't know that we're alone and almost certainly we would be seen as unwelcome guests."

Going to the left, of course, is towards the crack in the hull that the lightning bolts are coming from, so, in that sense, that is probably where engineering and the power plant is.

Keep in mind that the ship is roughly circular in shape, and the hallways seem to circle around the entire perimeter of the ship.

You only go about 20 feet before the crackle of energy prevents you from going any farther. You've reached crack in the hull that seems to go all the way from top to bottom. In a way, it's reminiscent of a crack in an egg. It's hard to imagine any attack that could have caused such damage, but it does seem--somehow--reasonable that it could have been some catastrophic failure of the power core.

If that's the case, it's probably closer to the center of the ship. You'll have to find another way to get there.




As the team doctor, Lizzie carries an advanced medical kit that holds several significant medical items, such as the mask with air bladder to pump air into a victims lungs so that actual mouth-to-mouth resuscitation efforts aren't needed, several different drugs that can be injected straight into the heart to stimulate it, plus a defibrillator. While the drugs are counter-indicated for an alien life form, the mask and defib are certainly warranted.

Oxygen (assuming these aliens breathe it, which seems reasonable since this guy exited his ship without a spacesuit) and chest compression (if his heart is in his chest) are administered as a temporary fix to prevent further deterioration. Only then does she try to use the defib.

The first attempt doesn't seem to do anything, so it's back to oxy and compression while it recharges. Trying it once again seems to have done the trick. Lizzie can detect a pulse, and the alien seems to be breathing again on its own.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:13, Sun 15 May 2022.

Kyle looks around for any wall markings or a computer terminal - either might provide some directions.

Kyle doesn't spot either wall markings or what might pass for a computer terminal. Then again, he's not really sure what a 'computer terminal' or the equivalent would be to these aliens. He could have been wearing it for all Kyle knows.

The airlock you entered through appeared to go straight in towards the center of the ship. And you saw at least three cross passages that probably circled the ship... at least part way. On the other side of the crack, you can see that the circle passage continues on.

"Hmm, perhaps we should head more towards the center. Not only does it seem like the crack cuts dip towards the center, but in all of the movies with these saucer ships, the deck is top dead center... probably because that allows it to serve no matter what direction the ship is going." Coleman gestures towards one of the side passages that heads inward.

"Makes sense," said Kyle and headed off along the indicated passageway, eager to see what could be found.

 Lizzy works hard to try to resuscitate the alien, the first time failed but Lizzy wasn't going to give up that quickly. Lizzy tried again and she got a pulse, and the alien was breathing.  Lizzy the said over comms," Sir, everyone we have successfully resuscitated the alien it is breathing on its own. Going to work on the Furling next." Lizzy will monitor the alien as best she can and record or the results she gets on vitals and other statistics.

"Fantastic, Doctor. Stewart; make sure to keep a sharp eye on the alien while the doc works on the Furling. Remember we have no idea of its intentions here."

"Got a zat trained on the alien," Carter replies to Coleman over the radio and through the static.

"If it even moves suspiciously, it gets zapped."

While she keeps her zat aimed at the alien, she visually examines in more detail, primarily looking for anything that might be considered a weapon or technology. Of course, it the technology is that advanced, she wouldn't recognize it anyway. The harness it was wearing, kind of like crossed bandoliers over the chest and attached to the belt, could easily have held sophisticated electronics. She didn't see anything that looked like control studs or buttons, but those could just as easily be hidden. And she sure hoped it wasn't activated by thought.

 Lizzy then went to the Furling and tried the same thing to try and revive him. She wasn't sure how long he had been dead, but Lizzy had to try.

Karen kept her weapon trained on the alien and moved to be able to see Lizzy as well.

Even jump-starting a Human heart doesn't always result in instant consciousness, so Lizzie isn't that surprised that the alien doesn't wake right up. On the other hand, it could have severe brain damage. If it was a Human, it'd have to be on life support to keep breathing.


Transferring her attention to the Furling, Lizzie once again employs the defibrillator. She's not sure how many more charges the battery can produce.

While Karen keeps watch on the alien, Carter comes over and helps Lizzie overcharge the defib in order to penetrate the stone-like skin of the Furling.

ZAP!

There's no 'spasm' from the shock like there often is with people, but the Furling's eyes pop open. He just lays there for a minute while he re-orients himself.

"I am so grateful for your efforts," he then says. "I am Yagafafamar. Is it advisable for me to get up?"

Coleman, Kyle and Jason head down the passageway towards the center of the ship, passing one other cross passage that appears to circle the ship before coming to the end, which is another circle passage. To your left, you can see the crack in the ship and the electricity that crackles all around that area. It'd probably be lethal going in that direction even though no lightning bolts are coming out of it.

Going to the right, you go about a quarter way around the ship when you come to an opening on the right. You can't quite tell if there's supposed to be a door there or if there is, where it is, but it seems likely that it slides aside into the wall.

Beyond is a large room that looks like it's probably the bridge. There are consoles/control panels across the far side of the room and what are probably viewscreens on the wall. There are three seats in front of the consoles, plus two additional seats against the side walls.

It isn't until you notice the bodies on the floor in front of the forward chairs that you realize that the consoles are partially blackened and cracked and that isn't their normal state.

Kyle checks out the bodies... what species are they? He then starts looking at the consoles to see which is the engineering one.

 Lizzy will leave the alien set up to record vitals but she doesnt know what normal is for this alien race. She moved on to the Furling and with Carter's help they revive the Furling and it speaks right away. " You are very welcome Yagafafamar, yes we have you out of range of the lightning field you can get up slowly, how do you feel I wish I knew more about your physiology but you seem fine now."

 Lizzy will check all his vitals but still has no clue how to help the Furling if something was wrong. Then Lizzy sends over the comms," Sir we have revived the Furling as well and his name is Yagafafamar. I will get as much information from him as I can."

"That is fantastic news. Our news is less great; we've found the bridge, but it appears that the workstations all look fried and the bridge crew seems dead. We'll keep trying to get this shut down."

Coleman looks at the consoles to see if any of them will turn on, hoping that there's going to be some way to get this thing shut down.

Kyle examines the bodies on the bridge of this alien ship; they are all of the same species as the body they found outside. The only difference seems to be in the clothing they are wearing, which looks like some type of uniform. While the markings on the uniform are clearly different, it takes a bit of focus and study for Kyle to realize that they do look different from each other. Now that he sees several of them, he can tell that one looks older than the others.

He can further tell that certain markings are probably rank designations, while patches on the pocket of the vests they are wearing probably signify specialty or department.

Two of them were probably zapped and then caught in a console explosion. Neither seem like they could be resuscitated. The others might be, but that also seems unlikely since they most likely took several zaps.

While the aliens are humanoid (though clearly not Human), he can't quite tell if they evolved from some 'lower' species. There are simply no telltale indicators of other species, such as different eyes, nose, quills, fur, tails, etc.

The bodies do not appear to be carrying any weapons, but then he's not sure what an alien weapon might look like.

Once he's done examining the bodies, Kyle moves over to the consoles.

Given that the aliens are humanoid, and the ship and bridge seem to be laid out with typical humanoid sensibilities, he quickly eliminates the forward consoles as being engineering. Those are most likely piloting, navigation, and sensors.

The side consoles, on the other hand, are probably communications and engineering. It only takes a minute to determine which one is which. However, they both seem equally fried. Whatever energy surge passed through them clearly shattered a lot of gauges and indicators, probably fried most of the circuitry and even warped the console material itself.

After a few minutes of studying the damage, though, he is able to come to the conclusion that the lightning strikes came from behind. He can't see anything that would warrant that, but it's possible that there is something in the bulkhead or behind the consoles that drew the lightning to them.... like a lightning rod that actually worked albeit unintentionally.

Kyle explains what he has worked out so far then goes to poke at the bulkhead he suspects the lightning strikes came from...

"Well... I wonder what is behind that bulkhead? Could this have been some kind of weapon, perhaps improvised, that someone used to sabotage the ship and its crew? At any rate, obviously, if we're going to get the engine shut down we're going to have to go somewhere else. Perhaps we can figure out a way to get to the other side of this bulkhead and see if there's anything obvious over there?"

Oops. Even me re-reading my post had me confused... a bit.

The bulkhead was the forward hull of the bridge that the consoles were built into. What Kyle determined was that the lightning bolts still came from the power core of the ship but seem to have been drawn to the consoles... primarily the forward ones.

Electricity takes the path of least resistance, so, yes, there could be something in the bulkhead that attracted the lightning. But it's not the source.

The dead bodies and the fried consoles certainly go a long way to explain why the ship crashed.

Actually I was curious about the path the lightning bolts took from the engine core towards the consoles... or did they merely overload the wires powering them?

Surely it's onlu on TV shows that you get arcs across the bridge and showers of sparks... real engineers know about fuses!

Now that Kyle starts wondering about the path of the lightning bolts, he realizes that he might have been making an erroneous assumption. While the energy looked like lightning bolts, and even delivered an electrical shock like one, it may not actually be a lightning bolt (or 5 or 6) that arced across the bridge. Any assortment of fuses, bus bars, and circuit breakers should have prevented the circuits from burning out. This looks more like a plasma bolt as it burnt through the console material as well as the circuits. Electricity alone wouldn't do that.

In any case, the plasma bolts came from 6 different angles which he can determine from the burn holes in the bulkheads. They still seem to have come from what is presumably the ship's power core at the center of the ship.

"If you've discovered all you can from the bridge here," Jason says to Kyle, "should we go see what caused all this damage in the first place?"

"Not that I'm particularly eager to get my ass fried, but it sounds like the 'answer', if not the 'solution', is in the central area."

"Yeah, this ship seems like a huge hazard, and who knows whether it will eventually die with a fizzle or a bang. If it is the latter that could be a major problem. I guess we should go look around and see if we can find any way to seal up the leak... if it is a leak. Whatever it is."

"I think so," said Kyle, explaining as best he could his deduction that the malfunctioning engines were emitting plasma bolts rather than lightning ones.

"I guess we go this way."

He pointed to a door that seemed to lead in the right direction then headed over to it and opened it.

"Careful there, Kyle," Jason cautions as Kyle moves to open a door.

"That's probably the door to the engineering section... or at least where the power source is. We walked around the inner loop to get to the bridge. There wasn't any other access that we saw to this inner core of the ship."

Kyle paused and looked back, his hand on the door controls.

"How do you want me to proceed?"

"We're still wearing our protective suits, so you should be safe, but you shouldn't test their effectiveness," Jason explains. "You know, it just occurs to me that the doors on Star Trek weren't very practical. Convenient, but not very secure. There was no way to just slide it open an inch or two to see what was on the other side."

"This door doesn't look like a hatch or airlock, and there aren't any handles that I can see, so it probably slides aside automatically when activated. ALL the way open. There's no power, though, so it shouldn't open at all."

"I'm hoping that panel to the left... or the right... is a manual release. So, stand to the side a bit when you use it... just in case a surge of energy shoots through the gap."

"Right...!

Kyle's mind went off on a tangent. Star Trek never seemed to have any fuses protecting critical equipment either. He wrenched his mind back into the present, opened the indicated panel and turned the lever, standing off to one side, not in front of the doorway.

"I am still a bit fuzzy-headed," Yagafafamar responds to Lizzy. "I am not quite sure what happened, though I deduce that I was struck by one of the lightning bolts as I approached the crashed ship. Perhaps more than one."

"I believe the correct terminology should be 'electrified plasma bolt', since it clearly carried a significant electrical charge. I do not recall any record of a Furling being struck by such a force before. We have a self-defense against extreme trauma, but, in this case, it seems to have been over-ridden."

"I was totally unconscious. Even my residual awareness was shut down. Since you were able to revive me, I was not dead, but I can not say if I would have revived on my own. I suspect not. However, I also can not say how long it would have taken me to fully die. Given our Furling nature, it could well have been days or weeks."


While this is transpiring, Karen and Carter keep an eye on the alien. After a minute or so, its eyes open. Another minute later it sits up and looks around.

It raises its open hands as if to show it is not armed.

 it spoke.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:47, Sun 26 June 2022.

No sooner does Kyle open the door than a plasma bolt flashes out and strikes the forward console of the bridge.

Once it's been discharged, Kyle realizes that it'll take a few seconds if not minutes for the potential to build up again.

He risks a quick peek through the door but what he sees makes him stop and stare a bit longer than he'd intended. Nothing happens, though, before he steps back again.

The room he saw was circular in keeping with the overall design of the 'saucer' ship, it was fairly large, and appeared to be 'engineering'. The walls were covered by consoles and displays, no doubt for various ship systems. The main feature however was the large central round power plant. He wasn't aware that anyone on Earth had actually made a working model, but he'd seen some of the simulations, and, of course, it was in comic books and super-hero movies. It was an arc reactor!

He also spotted three bodies lying below the consoles.

Once he'd gathered his wits and stepped back out of danger and closed the door, he described the scene as best he could to the others.

"Circular chamber, control panels around the periphery, and an honest-to-goodness arc reactor in the middle. That's what's spitting at us. Some bodies on the floor, too," he reported.

"What if we found some very stout conductor and connected it to ground, then somehow connected it to that, what did you call it? arc reactor? Maybe that would drain the energy to ground and at least make it safer to be around this area?"

"A Lightning Rod. Might work. If we
This was just electricity. If it is our world's version of Stark Tech, then we are talking cold fusion. I assume the core is basically Bad-Assium. Stupid name comics give things."

 Lizzy smiled at Yagafafamar, and she replied," Well stay still and move carefully you have just been through a lot, yes, I believe quick a few blasts you where hit by.

 Lizzy listens closely and takes notes on the reactions Yagafafamar recalls, and how he reacted to them. " Yes you where unconscious when we found you, and pulled you to safety. Well I am glad we found you in time and I could revive you, can you sit up on your own or do you need assistance or wait a little longer, also can you describe in detail how you are feeling so i can better understand your physiology?"

Carter continues to observe the alien even as she advises the other group over the radio.

However, both she and Karen realize that though the alien's mouth was moving and making sounds, he wasn't speaking English... or probably any other Earth language... yet you understood him perfectly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I am feeling... fine?" Yagafafamar replies to Lizzie. "Yet... I am not feeling... normal? It is a new experience so I am not sure how to define it or explain it."

"I can probably sit up, but perhaps I should continue to lay here for a bit while I analyze how I feel. What else has happened?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While a possible plan has been devised by Coleman, Kyle and Jason, finding a way to implement it remains to be seen. Given the current design of this alien ship, it doesn't seem likely that there will be coils of wire or cable just laying around in a store room. The best you can probably find might be metal bars... ship structural parts maybe... that can be linked together.

"It seems like we could take parts of the ship to construct some sort of grounding device... but it also seems risky, since we don't know how this tech works and it seems like we'd have to take quite a bit of it to make something that could reach clear outside to ground it. Possibly we should just ground the superstructure of the ship and then ground that arc reactor thing to the superstructure. That would require taking less of the ship apart. Still, it depends on the superstructure being conductive.

I wonder if maybe the Furlings have something appropriate, like a thick cable or something, that we could use to ground the thing directly?"

"Yes, the Furlings made a similar cable for us to haul out the one who'd fallen into the pit," Jason says.

"I'm just wondering if we're overthinking this. Shouldn't there just be someway to turn the reactor off? Any power source I've ever heard of had an emergency shut off."

"If Lizzie has revived the alien, maybe she can get him to tell us how to do that."

 Lizzy checked out what vitals she could on Yagafafamar, then replied," That is fine Yagafafamar, if you can please do but it is not vital, just trying to get as much information on your species as I can so i can help you more that's all."

 Lizzy then answered," Well that is probably good idea, lay here as long as you need to feel as close to normal as you can. We revived an Alien and three of our team has entered the craft to try and stop the electrified plasma bolt storm, that's where we are at Yagafafamar."

Kyle closed his eyes and visualised the engine room. Had he seem the equivalent of a big red button labelled 'Scram' anywhere?

He then started prowling round the consoles here in the control centre. It might be possible to shut the reactor down from here.

Kyle first tries to picture what he thinks should be an emergency shut-off button... and tries to remember if he saw anything like that in the Engineering room. Nothing comes to mind, but then he realizes that these aliens might have a different idea of what that should be.

It'd also have some sort of protective cover so that it wouldn't be accidentally shut down my mistake. It doesn't have to be a clear cover... Then he recalls seeing a gray box on the wall that had diagonal orange stripes on it. He can't recall seeing more than one of them.

Even if one of the consoles on the bridge had some way to shut down the arc reactor, none of them are working any more.


Lizzy is finally able to get a bit of a handle on the Furling anatomy. The first she figures out is that the Furlings have two hearts. This makes sense considering how big they are. As near as she can tell, one heart supplies 'blood' to the upper half of the body while the second heart supplies 'blood' to the lower half. She also realizes that their metabolism is rather slow which could account for their seeming ponderous movement and other actions.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:14, Thu 18 Aug 2022.

After considering the aliens words for a moment, and realizing that it isn't speaking English yet she can still understand it, Karen decides to reply... in English. Will the alien understand her?

"In a manner of speaking," she begins before thinking she should try to keep her answers and questions a bit simpler.

"Yes. My friend over there was able to revive you. My name is Karen. My other friends are inside your ship attempting to shut down the arc reactor. Can you tell us how to do that?"

"Without some help this is going to be tricky and error prone.... and errors will quite probably result in death. Let's hold still for a bit and give the aliens a chance to revive enough to tell us what they know."

"Yes, the arc reactor, as you call it," Jik Spo Gan replies to Karen.

"The ship struck a cosmic string and the arc reactor controls were damaged. Before we could do anything about it, it ran wild. Plasma bolts pulsed throughout the whole ship causing even more damage. It was all the crew could do to bring the ship to this planet and land it. I believe they paid the ultimate sacrifice to do that."

"The only way to shut it down now is either by letting it consume all the matter in its reactor, which could take months, or by using the emergency override switch in the main control room. It's covered by a gray and orange safety box."


When he's done speaking, Karen relays the information to Coleman, Kyle and Jason.

"Did you see that box in there, Kyle? Where is it in the room. One of us will need to get to it and turn it off."

"Oops, got my names mixed up, sorry; it was Kyle who Coleman would have asked."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:32, Thu 04 Aug 2022.

Armed with a description, Kyle begins to search...

Kyle did see the indicated box. It will require moving half way across engineering to reach it.

The grounding suits you have on should be sufficient for one attempt. There's no guarantee that they'll last for more than one strike.

"Right. Tell me what to do and I will try first. If I can't then one of you try. We can't let this go on."

Once the procedure is obvious, Coleman tries his best to time his run for a lull and get in there and turn it off.

Coleman steels himself, and then makes a mad dash in between bolts, around the bridge to the safety box, flips it up, and then hits the button.

There's a loud rumble from somewhere below, there's a final surge of multiple plasma discharges, and one strikes the wall right next to Coleman's hand. He can feel the electricity run up and down his arm and body, but it otherwise doesn't do any damage.

The silence and the darkness of the aftermath are almost an overwhelming relief. Fortunately, your radios are still working.

 Lizzy takes notes on both of her patients and tries to get a set bio level and try to figure out what might be normal for their alien biology. She will monitor them both closely and also keep her ear open on the radio in case she is needed in the ship.

"Holy f...udge. That was close!" Coleman takes a few seconds to let the adrenaline subside a bit, then keys up his radio; "We got it turned off, I think. How are things looking out there?"

Lizzy has no problem getting 'base line' readings for both aliens, but those are only in Human terms. As near as she can tell, any creature is bound to have a blood pressure, for instance, since if it has a heart, it has to pump the blood to the various parts of the body. That's kind of given.

What she can't tell is what other parameters are valid for an alien. It's kind of akin to an automobile: there's oil pressure, tire pressure, compression, spark, temperature... Who knows what other subsystems these aliens may have.

 Lizzy takes detailed notes and enters everything into her laptop to possibly work on a new alien profile program. Once she knows they are both stable she says to the Alien," How are you feeling I am a doctor I am trying to help you but I do not know you biology, can you help me help you." This was her calling being a doctor and heal others.

"It has been my experience that we are different than most species we've encountered in this galaxy," Jik responds to Lizzy.

"We have what you might call 'redundant systems'. We have four arms and four eyes--our internal organs are also doubled. When an organ gets damaged, it shuts down and the second organ takes over. The damaged organ repairs itself eventually."

"In the current instance, my nervous system took the brunt of the shock and shut down one of my hearts. The other heart was still functioning, but because the nervous system had been short-circuited, the second heart went into sustenance mode... functioning just enough to keep me alive. Alas, the nervous system does not have a back up system. So it needed the stimulus of your device to jump-start it again."

"I honestly do not know how long I would have laid there unconscious before I died. There is no record in my memory of such an event having occurred before."

"To further enlighten you, yes, I have two brains... one brain controls the arms on the opposite side of the body and the other brain the other arms. The two are integrated via what you call the 'hypothalmus'."

"What else can I tell you? Our frill helps regulate body temperature."

"This is just basic information that all starfarers are taught. More details are known, of course, by our medic. I do not believe she survived the crash."

"So what do we do now?" Jason asked as they waited to get a status report from the women.

"Considering the damage this ship took, I doubt if there's anything worth salvaging. I'd be super-leery of removing the arc reactor and taking it back with us, even if we could. While I have a lot of respect for the techs back at SGC, the reactor seems like a bit more power than I'd be comfortable. Remember what happened with the black hole."

"I wonder if these aliens know about the stargates and whether the survivor knows the gate address of his homeworld? I'm sure Command would like to send a diplomatic mission there!"

"Well, I suppose we can head out; everything seems dead here. Let's get to the entrance we used and look outside to see if the pulses have stopped too.

As for salvage; I'm pretty sure the SGC will send a salvage team to see if anything of value can be gained or learned from this. Assuming of course they're allowed to come."

Coleman heads to the entrance they took to get onto the ship.

"Yeah, not sure the alien would let us poke and prod his ship," Jason adds as he follows Coleman out of the ship.

"Do you think they might have a problem sharing some of their technology with us? The problem with them doing that is that they might be concerned that we'd use their own technology against them. We're not their enemy but they may not see it that way."

"In any case, it'll take years if not decades to turn any of this into something usable against the Goa'uld."

When Coleman, Kyle and Jason rejoin Karen, Lizzy and Carter, Karen takes Coleman aside.

"I think our alien friend there is from another galaxy," she tells Coleman. "That may mean that his ship has some sort of intergalactic drive. If that's the case, he may be stranded here."

"We could contact the Asgard. They should be able to take him home."

"If he, er, it? Is from another Galaxy, then the Asgard are our best hope to help. However, we aren't even certain of anything yet, I think. Perhaps the Furlings could even help? Lets try to get both of them back to the main Furling settlement and we can discuss this further with them."

" Yes, Asgard might be able to help them. So might the Furlings. "

 Lizzy was busy monitoring and taking notes on both her patients, but the alien was amazing, and his redundant systems were just awesome. Lizzy was engrossed in her work and didn't realize the others where back.

 Lizzy then said," The Furling should be able to travel I do not know enough about the alien yet to know if it is safe to move him but I think it is, and his race is amazing." Lizzy was excited to study both of these races up close.

 Lizzy looks at the alien," Are you safe to travel we cant leave you here, is there anything you need from your ship?"
 

"Although I am not fully healed, I believe it is safe for me to travel," Jik responds.

"Yes, there are three things I need from my ship. I need to retrieve a genetic marker from all of my deceased crew to confirm that they are dead. Their families will need that closure."

"Secondly, I will need food stores from my ship to sustain me. Possibly water, too. There are certain biological contaminants that are dangerous to the Ra'avi. Otherwise, purified water is necessary."

"Third, I am obligated to destroy my ship so that it cannot fall into the hands of the enemy... in particular, the Grognards."

"After the collision, none of us had the opportunity to arm ourselves, so I would like to retrieve a personal weapon as well."

As the Furling stands up, Jik seems to notice him for the first time.

"You are in league with the Grognards!" he semi-shouts in astonishment, frustration, and anger.

"Grognards?! Who are the Grognards?" Coleman looks at the Furling, addressing him; "Is he calling you a Grognard? Are your people in conflict with his people? Do you know what's going on here?"

Then Coleman addresses his team; "Ok, if he needs to gather stuff then destroy his ship, let's assist with that. We're not here to pick sides. Until we have this settled, let's all stay here in the area." Coleman looks at each of the aliens; "That goes for both of you too."

Yagafafamar looks at the other alien, apparently seeing him for the first time.

"I do not recognize his species," Yagafafamar replies. "We are not in conflict with anyone, not even the Goa'uld, although they keep trying to force it."

"Nor do I know what a 'Grognard' is. But, I am not a Teacher. One of them may know more about this than I do."

"I think it's a translation issue," Jason says. "Grognard isn't an alien word. It's sort of Old French. I think the translation is more like 'old soldier'... possibly 'old guard'."

 Lizzy stood up and then said," Well you are both my patients and I will not let anything happen to either of you. I say lets help Jik perform his tasks, I can get the DNA samples if he trusts me to do it."

 Lizzy turns to Jik," Is there anyway we might retrieve information o these Gronards from you ship Jik." Jik could tell she was serious and was very protective of her patients.

"Yeah, by our customs we have responsibility for both of you now since we've made the effort to rescue each of you from what appeared to be life-threatening situations. At least until we can establish all of the facts of the situation and deliver each of you to a safe situation, we'll do our best to provide for each of your security.

Jik, please, if you'll give us instructions we'll attempt to assist as best we can in your required tasks."

"By what method would you gather the genetic markers of my deceased crew?" Jik asks Lizzy.

"We use a molecular scanner. I'll need to find an intact one on the ship. It'll have a list of the entire crew so that, even if we can't find all of them, we'll know which ones we haven't found."

"Coleman, sir, are you really going to accept my need to destroy my ship? There is clearly technology in it that your species do not possess."

"Clearly there is, but my government has decided that finding allies and making friends is more important than acquiring new technologies at all costs. Some subversive elements from my planet have endeavored to steal tech from all manner of people, and we've risked our lives to stop those people.

I won't lie; some of your stuff seems pretty awesome. But I believe in our mission and will follow my orders."

" Yes, we have very clear rules about accepting technology. So yes we will help you destroy it. "

"Our ability to defend it or make use of it," Jason adds, "is much less than the Goa'uld's ability to take it and probably use it."

"They are our enemy. I suppose, technically, they are everyone's enemy. They have these devices that we call sarcophaguses. It heals a person's injuries and illnesses. But it was never meant for the Goa'uld--it is an Alteran device intended solely for the Alterans. I doubt if the Alterans ever even knew how it would affect other species... though it does occur to me that maybe an Alteran could manipulate the machine properly to heal another species."

"In any case, every time a sarcophagus is used on another species, including the Goa'uld, it affects their minds. The Goa'uld have been using it for thousands of years. It has twisted and corrupted them in nasty ways. They now think that they can conquer every other species in the galaxy."

"If you haven't encountered them before, they are little parasitic snakes that live inside the body of another species. Your scanners might detect them, but otherwise, it's only obvious when they exercise direct control over the host mind--their eyes glow."

"We have not heard of these Goa'uld," responds Jik. "But then we are not from this galaxy. In our home galaxy, our only enemy is the Grognards."

"Now that I have had a chance to observe your other ally in closer detail, I can how he differs from the Grognards. He appears to be a single sentient being. He lacks the weapons that bristle all over a Groganrd. The Grognards are sentient bio-tech suits of armor. It is most peculiar, though, how they resemble your ally so precisely."

"'Englightened self-interest'--THAT I can understand. Destroying my ship to keep it out of the hands of the Goa'uld makes perfect sense."

"Shall we get to it then?"

He has stood up while he talked, and now begins walking toward his ship.

"Yeah, let's."

Kyle looked unhappy. He was conflicted. He didn't want to pass up on any chance to learn about another species... but he certainly didn't want the Goa'uld to get their grubby paws on alien technology. And respected the choices of other species. If destroy their ship was something they wanted to do so be it.

"Uh. Do you have any records on your ship that could be worth saving? Your history, culture, that sort of thing?"

 Lizzy smiled and replied to Jik," I was just going to take blood samples, but your device seems amazing do you mind if I take a look at it. I would love to take a look at your medical advances, but they are for your race. Yes cultural information would be great as well."

 Lizzy gathered up her gear, and stayed close to Jik he was still her patient and she felt responsible.

"I am not sure if there will be any historical data remaining in the ship's archives," Jik replies to Kyle as he leads the group back to the now-inactive ship. "We do not normally keep such information on our ship as there is no need for it in space, but some usually finds its way into the computer."

"If we find a molecular scanner on the ship, Lizzy, you may certainly examine it. If we find more than one, you may even keep the second one. The Grognards have the same technology, so it is not a risk. They would most likely just destroy ours if they found one since they would have a difficult time manipulating the touch pads with their large digits."



As you approach the ship again, it now gives the impression of a totally dead ship. For some reason, this goes beyond just the fact that it is no longer crackling with power.

Jik pauses as you approach the main airlock and makes some sort of gesture with his hands and arms before entering the airlock. Once inside, he leads you straight to the central bridge area. He then goes over to one of the consoles and opens a compartment on the side. He extracts a handheld device about the size of cell phone, lightly taps at the face, and then sets it on the console.

"Its internal systems have been destroyed by the arc reactor surges. I had hoped it might be protected inside the console. There is another one on the other side... This one has also been destroyed. We must now search the ship."

"Ok; I assume we're looking for a device similar to that? Fan out folks; let's see if we can find the necessary device."

"Sure..."

Kyle always liked poking around another culture's stuff, so a wholly-new species' stuff was exciting... even mudane things like how they prepared their meals, sleeping quarters, and restrooms were of interest. As well, of course, looking out for devices similar to the one Jik had announced was defunct.

"I wish I could see the engines and piloting systems. But that night be to much to ask."

Jackie says as she stands around watching everyone.

"Yeah, this is kind of eerie," Jason offers. "It's always a bit freaky going through the scene of an event that killed a lot of people."

"I suppose it's no different than rescue work at a natural disaster. Never really did that sort of thing. How about you, Karen? You don't much mass rescue? Or has it all been more singular?"

"Okay, I'll keep an eye on Kyle. If there's something he get in to, he's bound to find it."

"I do not think there would be any harm in you viewing the engines," Jik responds to Carter. "The piloting systems are all computerized. There is no way an organic mind could manually control a ship in hyperspace."

"Access to the engines on the lower deck is through this hatch here in the wall. I can not recall anyone every having to use it while we were in flight but it should be safe enough here on the ground."


As the team scatters throughout the ship, it's fairly obvious that you can't get lost since most of the corridors circle the ship, so if you just keep going, you'll wind up where you started.

Jik points out various rooms as you go. When he points out the medical bay, he leaves that to Lizzy or Karen to search. He then continues to the medical officer's quarters.

The medical officer's body is not in the room, but he does find a scanner.

Kyle was enjoying poking around an alien construct, opening doors and drawers and cupboards, being totally nosy. What did this species do for entertainment? How did they sleep? What did they eat and how was it prepared? What were their restrooms like? Did they crave privacy or enjoy communal bathing? What did their language sound like and look like when written? Could he find a dictionary?

 Lizzy followed Jik and then saw the medical area and began looking around trying to figure out the tech she was in heaven.

Coleman takes a methodical approach to his part of the search, noting any bodies and keeping an eye out for any handheld devices. If he does spot anything handheld, he'll bring it along to present to Jik, just in case it is important.

Jackie walks fast to the engines.

Once the medical bay was pointed out to Lizzy, she began looking around the room.

It mostly looks like a standard Earth medical treatment facility, not unlike the SGC Med Bay. It has two treatment beds, though it looks like at least two more could be unfolded out of the walls.

There are three overhead devices for each bed, only one of which she identifies as an X-ray machine. The function of the other two are unknown.

Examining the cabinets, she finds that they are very organized. Rather than just have shelves to set things on, everything within the cabinets has its own secure fastener. All of it is labeled, but clearly not in a language she understands.

It two of the drawers, though, she does find another scanner.



Jackie merely has to open the indicated access hatch and climb down to the lower level where she's in the midst of the engines, so she doesn't really have to walk far.

Having seen the bridge (however briefly), she quickly determines that the engines are directional, essentially pointing towards the back of the ship (the direction opposite the bridge was facing). The design, of course, is totally alien, and after a few minutes she realizes that there are six engines, paired up, with each pair having a different design and function.

Thinking that the largest of each triple engine is probably the intergalactic drive, she soon realizes that it's actually the 'thrusters'/maneuver drives.

She then realizes that the smallest of each triplet appears to be the shiniest and probably the newest. It wouldn't make sense for that to be anything except the intergalactic drive. She can't be positive on such a short and superficial examination, but she thinks it's some kind of quantum drive.


Once Jik finds the scanner, he then begins to systematically go from one room to the next and if he finds a body there, he uses the scanner to verify that the body is dead and takes a molecular scan.

 Lizzy looked around took pictures and videos of everything she saw to study later. Lizzy looks at everything and wishes she could read their language; she will take more videos and pictures of as much of the writing as she can so someone might be able to decipher it. Lizzy checked the drawers and found a scanner, she picked it up and began to check it out and see how it worked, gave it a good once over before trying to activate it.

Jackie gets into the engines. Learning how they work.

Coleman just keeps looking, continuing to note the locations of any bodies, so that they're easier for Jik to locate and scan later.

Carter examines the 'engines' but can't make any sense of them. They clearly don't have sort of propulsion, such as jets, and most of the internal workings are... well, internal.

Gauges, however, let her determine that power can be adjusted to the engines, and the more power fed into them, the faster the ship can go. There's also apparently two separate (but connected?) drive systems. One seems to be for local travel while the other is for interstellar/intergalactic travel.

She's read a few papers on quantum drive, and she's pretty sure that's what this ship uses. How that's accomplished, however, she has no idea.


It takes about 30 minutes for Jik to scan all the bodies.


Lizzy, having observed how Jik used the scanner, soon figures out how to make it work, but still has the problem of not understanding the language. While she can tell what symbols indicate her own body temperature, she doesn't know the scale, though given time she could figure it out.

Somewhat surprisingly, she also can tell that these aliens seemed to live pretty much like Humans. Beds, chairs, tables, bathrooms... it all seemed 'normal' though there were clearly alien twists to some things.

 Lizz7y was excited when she got the scanner to work, she doesnt read the language yet, but she knew one was temp and in time she would figure it out and it was very exciting to her. She was amazed they lived very similar to humans with a few twists of course, she was very impressed so far.

 Once Lizzy was completely done searching and examining the medical area she would head back into the hall and head for another section looking for Jik.

Carter tries to find a way to look at the internal workings without damage.

Kyle is wandering around, muttering to himself and jotting notes as he begins to figure out the language.