Qui Habitat

[domarzione]

While everyone else is yuletiding, I'm working on the first update of a story since March 2012.

From somewhere early in Chapter 19 of Qui Habitat:

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“We have to hide that it was our people,” Abel said quietly to Cam, pulling him slightly aside. “We can dig out the bullets, burn the bodies, leave something profane – they want to believe in savages, then let us be savages. But even the Bargashi will realize who did this if they see them like this. They will recognize Tauri ammunition, Tauri competence – we cannot let them do that. We are not ready to face the consequences of this action.”

Cam frowned. Abel wasn’t wrong, but... But. Sheppard had told him to do what he needed to do and in that order had been leeway to do some less than pretty things, but Cam did not think for a second that desecrating the corpses of their enemies and torching a planet was in that leeway.

“Okay, before we start planning all the ways we can violate International Humanitarian Law in an hour or less,” Cam said, holding up a hand so Abel would pause because he was winding up to argue. “Let’s remember that this is a galaxy where large amounts of people disappear all the time. We can dig a hole, police what brass we can, make it look like a Wraith attack. We don’t have to go all Colonel Kurtz here.”

Even odds whether Abel would think Kurtz was an SGC commander gone looney or assume Cam was making a reference, but he understood the gist.

“You’ve never seen a scoopy-beams attack and neither have they,” Cam went on. “We can fake one well enough to fit the ghost stories they must have heard.”

He looked around for Reletti was and whistled for his attention when he saw him, calling him by rank and gesturing for him to come over. Reletti trotted over, wiping his kabar knife on his thigh and sheathing it as he arrived.

“Sir?”

“What do we need to stage a Wraith attack for people who’ve only heard about them?” Cam asked, gesturing at the field of fallen behind them. “A big hole somewhere out of the line of sight, garbage bags for the brass, and what?”

He watched as Reletti took in the question and realized why it was being asked. Reletti sucked on his teeth and turned to face the battlefield. “A couple of blasters, sir, maybe a piece of Wraith armor or two. I’m pretty sure the Colonel or Major Lorne can get Engineering to cough up a piece of a dart, make it look like it was air attack and the Bargashi got some.”

Next to Cam, Abel was looking at the nearby trees with intent.

“It’s the Bargashi, Abel, we don’t need to be sophisticated here,” Cam reminded him. “They’re not going to look if anyone survived by running and hiding.”

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I will need to go back to Chapter 18 and make this all fit better than it does, but that's minor compared to 7.5 years of "crap, I have no idea what happens next." Which does not mean that I have an ending, just that I have more of what happens before I get to the ending I don't have.

Comments

[ravurian]

Honestly, I'm excited. I just finished a reread of the first three parts as they stand, and I'm standing by for more <salutes>.

[domarzione]

I edited the whole store in light of In Medias Res, so it should hang together with this just fine. But 18 needs tweaks in chronology because, as was the case since the beginning, I wasn't planning ahead very well. :)

[ravurian]

In fairness, I'm not certain it was ever clear at the start how epic this would become. It is an absolute monster of a story. Of course, I have questions (because I always do), but the questions are not terribly germane to the current story - they're more like: did Jeannie really defect, or did she figure out where Sam went (I know you told us the answer to this in so many words, but the interstices, man)? Where is Nicholas Rush in this universe (plus Chloe, Young, Scott, et al)? Is Destiny still out there, and is that at all relevant? Will the Wraith and the Ori team up? (I can't imagine that's likely, because the Ori are bound to have nothing but contempt for the Wraith, and the Wraith - the Queens, at least - are hardly likely to bow their heads when they find it difficult to manage cooperation even between hives; but on the other hand, the Ori have a massive larder, and the Wraith might make natural enforcers absent competition for resources; but it does depend on what the Ori feed on versus what the Wraith feed on; so). Because I am somewhat unclear, too, on timelines, are the Asurans still out there? If so, what is their response to the Ori? I know, I know, none of these questions are relevant to the story you're telling, but I do think about them (just as I sometimes think about the AU ending you wrote for me all those years ago).

What I'm saying is: I'm delighted, and I'm here, and I'm with you.

[domarzione]

Questions I can answer now, questions I have to think about because I should be able to answer now...

Jeannie absolutely defected. The thing with being an atheist is that if there is no afterlife and no gods, then living under the Ori is equivalent to living under, say, Christianity. Jeannie went to the Ori.

Icarus Base was established around the time the Ori became a problem and the Young/Rush teams were left there to work on the chance that the Ninth Chevron Project gets them something to fight off the Ori. There is no Hammond and no political visits and no Lucian Alliance invasion, but the Ori do eventually get there. Who escapes aboard Destiny is unknown; they were supposed to dial Atlantis the way Armstrong did with Alpha Company and his scientists, but clearly they did not. They are all assumed dead or captured. (Rush is assumed to be working with the Ori because everyone hates him that much.)

The Wraith and the Ori do not team up. These are not sharing types.

I really disliked the Asurans arc for many reasons, so they are going to stay absent until I corner myself and relent.

[ravurian]

If Jeannie wasn't going back to Kaleb and Madison, what was the point of her defection? Is it your opinion that she does? Will she show up again in the Qui Habitat story, or does she just disappear into the universe? I sort of like the idea that she does, in the same way that Daniel does, that Sam does, because, you know, that's the way these things happen - life is not narratively coherent, and it's nice to see that reflected sometimes in stories. People do just sometimes take themselves out of the narrative.

On the other hand, imagine if at some point the Ori sent their own version of the SGA-1 team to fuck with Atlantis: Jeannie, Dave Shepherd, Kanaan maybe. I can't imagine what that story would be, or what the point of it would be, but there's potential there. This is not a request, btw. I just apparently can't shut up.

You know, I have absolutely no idea how the Ori were dealt with in canon. None. Hmm. Anyway.

(Utterly out of left-field, and completely not requiring a response (this is just a head's up): if you ever do one of those AU challenges again I am totally going to ask about Bucky Barnes and Nat in the Qui Habitat universe, and how close to the Ancient base in Antarctica Steve Rogers frozen body might have been.)

[domarzione]

Jeannie was serving a system that was going to enforce rejection of the Ori unto death. Getting out of it was her stopping making things worse. Helping the Ori work faster maybe made things better for Madison. Maybe it didn't matter anymore. Lots of parents hit their breaking points and stop putting their children first without becoming objectively bad people.

You are writing QH fanfic! :) Kanaan is alive and well on the mainland as Teyla's booty call, btw.

The Ori were magicked away by the Ark of Truthiness. It was a ridiculously deus ex machina solution.

... do you want me to point out that Steve was frozen in the North Sea and Antarctica is literally at the other end of the planet or should I save that thought for later? :)

I already wrote Spooks/Stargate and you can't tell me MCU/Stargate is harder than that. The Natasha part is very similar to how I wrote Ros. Bucky is never a part of it because he's too valuable to be wasted on scientific research or chasing System Lords -- let the Americans waste time doing that.