Snakepit : A Stargate - Draka Crossover

[Simon_Jester]

What I mean is, they shouldn't just be killing each other off; they should be doing so to the point where their whole social structure collapses. Man is a social animal; drakensis is not.

[Baughn]

I don't see how their society can possibly compete with a normal one for industrial output, even before the drakensis conversion. Compared to that little hole, frankly, not wiping each other out is a small problem.

There's no telling what kind of odd adaptions they stuck in the gene-mod. Some kind of self-regulation on the level of violence is perfectly possible.

[iborg]

Well, they're heavily conditioned during their whole childhood in the "Service to the State, Glory to the Race" mindstate. The greater good and all that. Other factors :
_ Citizens are all highly-skilled killing machines. Probably pays to be polite.
_ The density isn't all that high. The Final Society where the whole heightened aggressiveness becomes a bigger danger, is even less populated in Drakon's era (the Drakensis population is actually dropping slowly). The snakes being territorial and aggressive doesn't matter too much if every individual has enough available lebensraum.
_ the genemods likely include an overriding racial preservation imperative as well.

With all the ASBness of the Domination, they're still fun to write especially in the stargate setting where everyone was more or less assholes (except the SGC, of course). They're still a huge empire of Mary-Sue, which can be a challenge to write. With Gwendolyn for example, she's such a canon Sue I want to show some "normal" traits and behaviors to balance it out, but still have to deal with her ingrained uberness.

[iborg]

Aresopolis Command Base
Mare Serenitatis, Luna, Solar System

The suborbital flight from Dante crater to the main Draka military base on Earth’s moon took less time than the various checks Gwen had to submit to at her destination. There was another layer of biocontrol checks, the Domination being justifiably paranoid about Goa’uld takeover (not too likely, Gwen thought, but better safer than sorry) or biowarfare (another possibility, which would be ironic if it happened to the Race itself). And although the Drakenses ought to be reasonably immune to illnesses picked up on other worlds, their Old Race predecessors weren’t. Then it was the classic and redundant security checks, DNA codes, iris-patterns, fingerprints, brainwave scans, each step more intrusive and annoying as she went through increased levels of security, until she was deemed clean and identified enough to meet the Space Force’s top brass in a deeply buried conference room.
She had not expected to face Arch-Strategos Deirdre Schneider in person, along with a couple high-ranked officers she didn’t know personally, standing behind the slab of mahogany table cutting across the length of the room. Her salute and coming to attention were entirely instinctive, and returned with relaxed formality.
“Please, Cohortarch, no need to act so stiffly here” Schneider gestured for her to sit in the closest chair, and followed her own suggestion, imitated by her acolytes. A moment of mutual observation, three distinguished representants of the Old Race gauging one of their purposefully designed heirs. Gwendolyn’s eyes didn’t waver. There was no challenge, only a sense of expectation. She doubted the highest ranked officer in the Domination would bother meeting her directly without a pretty good reason.

“Cohortarch Ingolfsson” the sixty-something woman behind the table introduced “these gentlemen are Strategos Langstrom from BuShips and Strategos Garner representing the Fleet’s strategic planning board.” Both nodded as she named them. Gwen digested the information. That was a lot of brass just for her, and their presence had to be significant. Hopes stirred in her chest.
“We are all quite busy these days, so I’ll get straight to the point.” Gwen resisted the urge to lick her lips. Her superior went on. “We didn’t send you as a liaison with the Tollan Navy for no reason. Your performance in the Space Force was exemplary beforehand - a reason you were picked for this assignment - and our Tollan counterparts have praised your competence and dedication as well” she pointed to the printouts scattered in front of her. “In fact, they have done so for every officer we sent to them, which, coming from a service with a rather longer experience at space operations than us, means something.” there was a shared look of satisfaction “I take it that you found the experience useful as well ?”
“Yes Ma’am, it was a precious opportunity to look at the Imperial Navy’s procedures and tactics, which I think will be very relevant once we deploy warships based on similar technological principles”
Another satisfied look from the three high officers, evidently pleased with her response.
“Good reasoning, Cohortarch. Indeed, the ships we will be deploying in the future will force a radically different tactical thinking. And we have to start training our crews into this adjusted frame. Unfortunately, while the new generation of ships designed from the ground-up for FTL warfare is on the design stage, they won’t arrive for a couple years at the earliest.”
Ingolfsson raised an eyebrow as her superior paused for effect. “Ma’am, what about the Goa’uld ships we captured ?”
“They will undoubtedly bolster our current military standing, but we cannot rely on Goa’uld designs although we will definitely try to learn everything we can about their workings. besides, I was told that it would take the ha’taks four months at top sustained speed to make the journey from the Tollan sector to Sol. Even then, we will only recall one for the time being, the other will stay over Nautona for joint research” Schneider made a small moue. “I wish we didn’t have to, but Archona’s keen on establishing healthy working relations with those ferals… I see the necessity but it doesn’t make it any less annoying” her opinion appeared to be shared by her colleagues, who nodded silently. Their underling remained blank-faced. She had found said ferals to be pleasant to mingle with, but whatever her own perceptions, the overarching goals of the Race were paramount. One day, the Tollans would meet the Yoke. Anything else couldn’t be envisioned - suggesting so would be akin to treason, after all. But at least it didn’t appear to be for the near-future.

“Anyway” Schneider went back on track and activated the room’s main wall display. Lights dimmed automatically and everyone turned their gaze to the picture.
Ingolfsson’s heart leaped in her chest. What the display showed was familiar to her, the cylindrical shape of an Imperator-class pulse-drive cruiser, the stenciled name on its primary hull identifying it as the DACS Starsword. A vessel she had briefly served on as Tactical Officer years ago. But it wasn’t exactly the same ship, she realized. While its general shape and components were typical of a last-generation pulse-drive warship, the kind which had fought the Final War even with their compcores forcibly blown out, some details were off. She turned an interrogative eye towards her superior officer.
“Indeed, Cohortarch. It’s not the old Starsword you knew - well not entirely. See, we made a few modifications…” A sideway glance and Strategos Langstrom took the cue without missing a beat.
“What you’re looking at, Cohortarch, is the Domination’s first indigenous FTL ship.” He paused to let the notion sink in. “The Tesla Combine put an hyperdrive together following our… Goa’uld prisoner’s theoretical pointers. Every component is home-built. This is our design, we know how and why it works. The drawback is, by Goa’uld standards it’s a crude affair, slow and relatively inaccurate - but safe, we tested it in short-hops across the system. Not only that, but we also fitted shield emitters. Same as the hyperdrive, we designed and built them, but don’t expect them to hold up against a ha’tak’s firepower.”

Drawbacks or not, Gwendolyn was mesmerized. “What about power generation, Sir ?”
“Compact helium three reactor with subspace heat dump, and a naquadah generator for hyperdrive operation. We retained the deployable solar panels for emergency use. STL propulsion is unchanged, we still have trouble getting our interial compensator design to work, err, reliably and we don’t want the crew to turn into paste because of a sudden failure.”
Gwen nodded in understanding, still in utter fascination, and Langstrom continued.
“And this ship has more teeth than anything we ever fielded before, although it’s still outclassed by Tollan or Goa’uld designs. But we applied improved her lasers’ rate of fire with more efficient cooling. Other than that, it retained railguns and X-ray laser bombs… and something we added” the picture changed, the live view of the Starsword disappeared and a synthetic tridimensional schematic appeared.
“Allow me to introduce the Star Arrow heavy ship-to-ship missile” he grinned with apparent glee. “High-impulse solid-propellant rocket motor with inertial assistance - yes, it works here because it’s not supposed to work for long - providing six hundred gees for twenty seconds which gives a terminal velocity of a hundred and seventeen kps. More importantly… it fields a four gigaton matter-annihilation warhead and you better not be in the immediate vicinity when it explodes.”
“Sweet !”
“Your enthusiasm is commendable, Cohortarch, and rightly so, since you will command this baby.” Ingolfsson’s eyes shone as Schneider spoke again. “We have more experienced commanders, you see, but the commanders of our future FTL capable fleet will undoubtedly be in position to deal and interact with fer… foreign personnel in a smooth enough manner. Something us old types who grew up waiting for the Final War… aren’t exactly the best equipped, mentally, to handle.” She made a self-apologetic smile. “So you, Cohortarch Ingolfsson, will stand at the vanguard of this… new wave of explorers”.
The newly appointed vanguard found the right words coming to her naturally.
“When do I start ?”

[[R_H]]

There are several lovecraftian horrors I'd prefer to the Draka.

Yes, they might drive me insane and then eat me, but at least it won't be drawn out. The Dominion has a larger negative utility than freakin' Cthulhu, because it just goes on and on.

Until they mess with something way out of their league, and end up getting skull-fucked.

I honestly think that something along the lines of von Neumann machines (like the Beserkers) are more horrifying/terrifying than the Draka.

[Simon_Jester]

At least they put you out of their misery eventually. The Draka... don't.

[Baughn]

With von neumann machines, I can draw some relief from the fact that there are other MWI branches, and likely other universes too.

I believe some worlds have positive value, and some have negative value. A von neumann-machine destroyed world is a big, fat zero. A draka-dominated one.. well, it ain't zero...

[iborg]

Speaking of machines...


Dante Base, Luna
April 1st, 2011


Thomas Röhm, high ranking expert of the Domination’s Science Directorate and thus in charge with the scientific aspects of the Stargate program, was currently red-faced. He and the Merarch had met in the lift on their way to the Ops Room, where they were going to monitor the first-dialing of a new gate address. With the so-called Tollan Campaign winding down, emphasis had swung back towards exploration of the stargate network, and they had a sizable backlog of untested addresses.
Both men had walked down the access corridor, the scientist prattling about the week’s in-base news, before stopping at the heavy blast doors where the two sentries checked their identity. Routine procedure. Until, that is…
“Sir, I cannot allow you to proceed” the guard’s voice was polite but firm.
Röhm had stared blankly for a second, then shaken himself.
“What ?” was all he found to say.
“You are contaminated by alien biological matter, Sir”
Staring goggle-eyed at the blank visor, the doctor’s mind labored to make sense of the statement, until realization dawned on him. His hand went around and patted his back, found the “alien biological matter”, and ripped it gingerly off his overcoat’s tough fabric. The thing fell on the ground lazily as Röhm’s gaze turned accusatorily towards Polignac’s face, who was split with a mirthful grin.
“Got ya, doc !”
“Playing an April Fool prank with a dead Goa’uld symbiote is…” the civilian struggled to keep a disapproving tone “well that’s not dignified !”
“It’s not dignified to walk around with a dead Goa’uld glued on your back ?”
“How did you manage anyway...?”
Polignac sniggered happily.
“Well, Thomas, this just shows you should spend a little more time at the palestra working on your reflexes and situational awareness, and less in front of comp displays”
“Pffffft !”

The sentry bent and retrieved the blackish, floppy corpse. “I think the alien biological is under control, Sir.” He did manage to keep a serious tone, to his credit, and his colleague typed in the access code, allowing the doors to open and the two men to pass through.
“I would have thought you New Race types would be above such childish behavior.”
Anton shrugged, still grinning, as they stepped on the elevated mesh-floor platform dominating the Operations Center’s quiet bustle.
“Why ? Laughing is good for the mind” He glanced at his second-in-command. “Besides, you’re not the only one who got pranked”
“Oh ?”
“Alex managed to stick a paper fish on Jessica’s back before she sent her to fetch breakfast this morning”
“And the poor wench didn’t notice ?”
“Nah. She was still hammered by that Tollan brandy. Chrysos had to help her back - good thing he did, in retrospect. In her state she’d have dropped the trays for sure -”
“- and thus deserved a spanking” Röhm finished.
“Yeah. Well at least our lad Chrysos looked happy to see her.”
Chuckles followed. Ancillary romance was a major source of the base’s gossip.

Seriousness reasserted itself as the preparations for the dialing took place below, and in Complex B ten klicks down the rim. No maglev traffic was scheduled today and the embarkation hall was therefore pressurized, but deserted aside from the drone waiting obediently in front of the inactive ring.
Final checklist elements ticked by.
“Dialing sequence initiated” the senior operator announced. On the giant wallscreen, the stargate began to spin chevrons locking one by one.
“Connection established”
“We’re getting electromagnetic radiation, low power, wideband. Looks like background noise”
“Probe on the way”
The mechanical spider crawled swiftly and entered the wormhole. Its mad dash across interstellar distances lasted a couple seconds.
“Probe emergence, telemetry link active”
Thousands of light-years away, the drone began to retransmit what its machine senses saw and heard.
“Wow.”

The silvery low-light image panned across the main display window. A forest stretched in front of the distant stargate. But this forest wasn’t made of trees. It was a forest of tall-looking metal spines and towers, an architecture every bit as alien to human mind as a beehive. Its proportions and dimensions, the cold fractal geometry of this skyline evoked an abstract, mathematical design intelligence, a mind that gave no thought to biological patterns. It was more than industrial, it was alien. Cold. Forbidding.
As the enthralled men of Dante Base watched, a bright flash stabbed through the displayed vista a fraction of a second before the drone’s telemetry went dead. The display switched automatically back to the embarkation hall feed, just in time for the Ops Center crew to witness a flash of lightning shoot from the event horizon, something that ought to be impossible. The discharge hit one of the com-panels, frying it with an explosion of sparks.
“Shut the gate down !” Polignac barked and the serf operator slammed his hand on the red emergency disconnect button. Power and data flow cut off abruptly from the stargate, and the wormhole collapsed instantly.
“Report !”
Below the observation platform, serf technicians checked their consoles, monitored by Citizen engineer overseers. It took a minute for a coherent report to filter through and be collated by the senior gate engineer. During that time, an emergency response team swarmed in the gateroom to check on the damaged wall-mounted communication terminal and ensure against fire hazard.
“Sir, this is what we got” the engineer addressed Röhm and Polignac, reading out of his perscomp tablet “the probe was destroyed by an unknown energy weapon, as far as we could determine through telemetry and feedback radiation. But we have no idea just what came through the gate, it looked like lightning, but lightning should not be able to travel against an incoming wormhole !”
“What’s the damage like ?”
“Com-panel’s fried, electrical surge through its local loop, of course it’s isolated by design from the other networks. We read voltage spikes on all the connected terminals though, but they’re all returning full functionality, the surge protections have worked. But it’s weird…”
“What’s weird ?” Röhm prodded.
“There are overload cut-outs on that line, anything purely electrical would have triggered them”
“Just what are you implying here ?”
“Well… the cut-outs were triggered, but the… perturbation seemed to have jumped across the gaps, for lack of better words.”

A moment passed as the commanders digested the information. Polignac was the first to react.
“I want a full inspection of that communication loop. Tear down every terminal and check every component.”
“Sir, you think -”
“I think the Yank comp-plague taught us to be paranoid about data security. I’m not sure what this… surge was, but our probe was destroyed and I’m treating the whole thing as a hostile act.”
“Yes Sir !” the engineer turned back and climbed down the mesh stairs to join his crew.

Polignac took a breath, and walked to the closest com terminal, one that belonged to a different loop than the compromised one. The system recognized his identity, and he entered his correspondant’s callstring. The signal bounced through highly secure lines and finally reached its destination.
The Space Force logo dissolved into the face of a raven-haired woman, her strong and regular features barely altered by age lines.
“Schneider here - Polignac, what drove you to call me on my direct line ?”
“Ma’am, we may need a Type Fourteen”
“A Hellstorm ?” her tone and expression became very serious. “If it’s not a right-now life-or-death matter, why don’t you start with a quick explanation of why you’d need a four gigaton warhead ?”

As the base’s technical personnel swung into action and their commander explained the situation to his own superior, something stirred in the bowels of Complex A. Something that was neither pure energy nor matter, highly evolved and complex in its own fashion, yet entirely alien to the fleshy denizens who crowded the base.
It had no innate form or shape, but as it found resources to command, the thing evolved one.

Two levels above, a pair of serf technicians trudged along one of the complex’ main corridors, one holding a maintenance perscomp and the other a toolcase. One of the teams dispatched to check on the compromised terminals scattered across the facility. They had already disconnected one of the electronic cases, packed it and handed it to a retrieval team with a wheel-mounted trolley. It wasn’t a difficult task, the units were sturdy and designed to be plugged in and out easily.
“Okay, next one’s, outside storage room six-cee.
“That’s down two levels, we’ll take the closest lift”
The pair headed to the end of the passage, and a swipe of an access card called the lift up after the system determined that yes, those serfs were allowed to use it. The doors slid open and they stepped into the elevator cabin, selecting their destination on the touch screen. A chime sounded and the mechanism began to move smoothly on magnetic rails.
“Six-cee, that’s where they’re storing all those electro-mechanical spares for the power armor suits, right ?”
“Yep. Normally, it’s off-limit to us, but that terminal’s outside anyway.”
An instant later, the armored lift doors opened again in a corridor lit by low-intensity strips. The walls were rough concrete with a thin layer of pale yellow paint, the ubiquitous piping and cabling running on the ceiling and sides, all color-coded. Level six was predominantly a storage and service area, with few human traffic.
The technicians were observed by the security cameras as they walked down the passage, exchanging innocuous chit-chat that wouldn’t get them into trouble with their controllers - the microphones equipping their duty uniforms were always on by design.

“Master, that’s curious” another tech, up in the Ops room, motioned to the senior gate engineer “I’m reading a higher than normal power drain in storage room six-cee”
“How much higher ?”
“Umm, much higher Master, look at this !”
The Draka supervisor bent closer to the console and peered at the display. The schematics of the facility’s electrical matrix were familiar, showing the flow of electrons along the main superconducting buses and their sub-section tributaries. Level 6 was indeed pulling a lot more power than it ought to. In fact, something in that glorified parts closet was apparently drawing several megawatts worth. That was a lot for standby lighting and ventilation, he thought. It might be a telemetry glitch, but considering the recent oddities…
“We got someone nearby ?”
“There should be, one of the wall-com’s nearby...”
The Draka frowned and tapped a command, flashing his own badge over the console’s ID reader. The system obeyed and a security feed window blossomed on the screen, showing the section of corridor where the two serfs presently walked, located by their implants. Another command and he was patched into their earbuds.
“Kramer here. Lads, are you seeing anything abnormal at your location ?”
The pair stopped, surprised by the sudden intrusion and gave each other a slightly larmed look.
“Not at the moment, Master… why ?”
“Something’s odd with six-cee. I temporarily upgraded your security level, go there and check the room. I’m sending backup too”
Just what could cause such a power drain ? The fire alarm sensors were silent, and there was no temperature or pressure change. They should have put a camera in that room, he thought. But he didn’t actually fear for the technicians’ safety. He couldn’t after all have foreseen what was sitting in room 6C.

He did watch as the serfs reached the section labeled 6C and the heavy door blocking access to the strangely-behaving storage room. One of them waved his badge over the sensor plaque next to the door, and the indicator light turned to green. The steel panel smoothly opened inwards on its servos, but the camera angle didn’t allow to see much beyond the fact that it was dark. Which wasn’t normal. Interior lights should turn on as the door unlocked.
The serfs bent forward, evidently trying to peer into the darkened space and its rows of neatly packaged spares for the variety of power actuators used in the armory.
The next second a blinding flash blanked out the display temporarily, until the image adjusted again. Both serf and Draka felt their jaw fall in shock.
The wall opposite the open door was blackened, scorched. Where the unfortunate techs had been standing were two coal statues, frozen in place and smoking, the heavy-duty fireproof uniform baked to a crisp and indistinguisable from the charred flesh. The fire alarm belatedly started to ring in the section.
“Holy Wotan’s shit !”
Before they could recover from the unexpected sight, another flash blanked the display, this time for good. That particular camera was history but it’s last frames showed an indistinct shape moving just short of the threshold.
In the suddenly silent room, the supervisor’s yell fell like thunder.
“INTRUDER !”

The thing was ready. The last minutes had been well spent. While substandard to its original designers, the materials found had readily adapted to their new task, and the enemy’s own power flux had fed the cobbled engine of destruction. It was ready to set on its way, to destroy and adapt and grow more powerful as it assimilated more refined matter. What had been a tiny seed had darted across the most promising path, overcome the few gaps and obstacles and found a quiet place where it could grow and learn. Grow it had. But the systems it had found were… obnoxious, as if designed to yield as little to invasive, probing entities like itself. Icy, static things, unmoving, etched in place, the little data inside them encrypted and senselessly fragmented.
Surely it should have proceeded differently when the carbon-based chemical constructs had intruded. The briefly-tasted aura of their electro-chemical information processes hinted at a higher and more coherent level of functionality. Well, more would probably be encountered and their careful deconstruction would certainly bring useful knowledge of how to terminate the threat to the Datahive.
Thus the destroyer drone set its improvised material body out into the enemy physical realm, the initial germ of compressed quantum energy-code coalescing into matter picofoam, from which nano-effectors had unfolded themselves like so many fractal flowers, repeating the process into the larger-scale macro-structure, the growth fueled by the enemy’s own flowing energy and the enemy’s own hardware, assimilated into the destroyer’s form.
It recognized the function of the small electro-optical sensor outside its starting space and disabled it. Scans rapidly built a tridimensional plot of the surroundings, pinpointing the closest access to the rest of the facility. Neutrino traces tantalizing pointed to suitably high energy sources in the vicinity. Energy to grow and destroy.

As it reached line of sight of the vertical access shaft, the mechanical closure system activated and two more of the chemically-actuated constructs came into direct view, emitting mechanical pressure-wave signals. The destroyer briefly wondered about the method. It would obviously be useless in vacuum, its utility therefore dubious. Maybe it was just a byproduct of their energy conversion mode ? At least their direct analysis would provide some answers.
The constructs’ immediate reaction to the destroyer’s presence was an attempt to reverse vector, which showed their effective coordination of the jointed-lever motivators making up their displacement apparatus. A low-powered directed quantum pulse caused them to lose function and surrender to the ambient level of gravity.
Quickly, the destroyer moved closer to the fallen shapes and interfaced with their complex electro-chemical command node. It had to work fast. Vibration patterns warned of more incoming enemy cells.
Data started to coalesce into senseful order. It was utterly alien in experience, but the general data frameworks seemed to support the hypothesis that those constructs were essentially autonomous, yet acted in complex analog mutual interaction. The knowledge was precious in itself (a never-before encountered mode of distributed functionality !) but the destroyer’s mission wasn’t fundamental data acquisition. Those chemicals were part of the structure which had attacked the Datahive. They had to be destroyed.

A fleeting moment of confusion was caused by the arrival of new enemy cells. They followed an identical overall geometry as the first ones, but their exterior shell was made of hard inert minerals. Obviously a protective function, it classified them as aggressive response units, along with their semi-fused attachments. The hard carapace would be relatively insensitive, but the soft carbon and water compounds underneath were just as fragile.
A line of quantum lightning cut through the air and hit the first armored Drakensis, bypassing the cermet shell to expend its collapsed-state energy inside the flesh. Flash-carbonized inside his armor, the soldier’s body continued forward out of inertia before collapsing, smoke seeping out of compromised armor joints.
A second one, then a third, suffered the same fate in the span of a second.
The destroyer was pleased with the effectiveness of its primary weapon. However, its energy reserve had been cut in half already. Although replenishing it would be possible shortly, it would be wise to conserve it until then. Fortunately, full incineration was obviously an excessive degree of force to deal with the enemy chemicals. A much reduced yield would amply incapacitate one beyond its self-repair ability.
The destroyer’s efficiency calculus saved Decurion Rayner from becoming a charcoal-filled suit of infantry armor like the rest of her emergency response team, but her body was still flash-cooked. Her torso burst explosively as fluid-filled organs vapor-flashed, spraying geysers of steaming blood from cracks in her armor and her lifesign-monitors flatlined instantly.
More enemy response cells were detected seconds later, coming up from another passage behind the destroyer’s starting position. It charged the quantum projector in anticipation but they did stop before coming in sight. Certainly the poor performance of their siblings must be causing their controlling intelligence to reassess the situation. Maybe they would bring in stronger models ?

[[R_H]]

Very interesting, what the hell is it though?

[Baughn]

Go quantum demon! Go! Burn this horrible place to the ground! Muahahahahaha!

..yeah, seriously, that was my reaction. Now you just need to have it kill some Drakensis, and my day will be complete.

[Sky Captain]

What the heck is that??? I can`t remember anything like this from original Stargate series.

[Baughn]

They're dialing the gates in a different order, and so found something sufficiently capable to annoy them. Oh yes. I'm loving this.

[1234q1234q]

Would it not be conceivable that the construct would be able to broadcast itself over the entire moon, taking over lightly encrypted data pads then leapfrogging into more powerful systems? Assuming that this thing is as smart as you made it, it should now be building more destroyers and antenna to do just that, if this plays out they should lose the entire moon.

P.S. The cannon intelligence was easily capable of pulling a skynet off with significantly fewer resources then it has now.

[iborg]

Would it not be conceivable that the construct would be able to broadcast itself over the entire moon, taking over lightly encrypted data pads then leapfrogging into more powerful systems? Assuming that this thing is as smart as you made it, it should now be building more destroyers and antenna to do just that, if this plays out they should lose the entire moon.

P.S. The cannon intelligence was easily capable of pulling a skynet off with significantly fewer resources then it has now.

Yup, but that's where the different computer tech comes into play. The invader found that Drakaverse computers are hard if not impossible to take over quickly (unlike those in SGC) or just too dumb to be of much use so it had to get more, well... hands on.
For starters.

[Gerald Tarrant]

Would it not be conceivable that the construct would be able to broadcast itself over the entire moon, taking over lightly encrypted data pads then leapfrogging into more powerful systems? Assuming that this thing is as smart as you made it, it should now be building more destroyers and antenna to do just that, if this plays out they should lose the entire moon.

P.S. The cannon intelligence was easily capable of pulling a skynet off with significantly fewer resources then it has now.

Yup, but that's where the different computer tech comes into play. The invader found that Drakaverse computers are hard if not impossible to take over quickly (unlike those in SGC) or just too dumb to be of much use so it had to get more, well... hands on.
For starters.

An expansion on this for those that might not be aware. Draka equipment used what they called COMPinsets; they're basically ROM programmed. Pournelle also used those in his CoDominium series (which Stirling wrote in). It essentially makes any computer less flexible (changing a program requires swapping your ROM out) and also harder to corrupt, the folks that used ROM programmed computers in the CoDo universe were paranoid military security types. And the Draka are of course institutionally paranoid and had good reason to worry about the hacking abilities of their opponents.

[JointStrikeFighter]

It's the computer virus that invaded the SGC and carter's brain in an episode whose name sadly escapes me.

EDIT: S4 Entity

[[R_H]]

It's the computer virus that invaded the SGC and carter's brain in an episode whose name sadly escapes me.

EDIT: S4 Entity

Ah, that episode. The only one that came to my mind was that probe thing that impaled O'Neil to the wall.

[Sky Captain]

It's the computer virus that invaded the SGC and carter's brain in an episode whose name sadly escapes me.

EDIT: S4 Entity

Ah now I recall, it was like 5 or more years back when I watched that episode.

[iborg]

***

Inside Ops, the atmosphere had just metaphorically dropped by several degrees. That thing, whatever it was, had just incinerated a reaction team in a blink. Including poor Rayner who had come back from the dead once already.
The shrill intruder alarm was ringing inside the whole complex and containment protocols were coming online, but not quickly enough. The intruder was truely machine-like in its reaction speed and specifically destroyed internal surveillance sensors as soon as they came within range of that damn weapon it was using. It had commandeered the elevator, bruteforcing the local command circuits and soldiers were shadowing it, keeping clear out of range of its incinerator beam, which fortunately appeared to be line of sight. The internal blast doors appeared to offer only token resistance, the thing was able to subvert the servocircuits in seconds. Not only that, but it was trying to access the data and power arrays running throughout the base. So far, the compsec measures held it in check, but assuming it came into direct physical contact with the compcore…
Polignac’s mind churned, urgent danger focusing his Drakensis acumen. What did they know about this thing ? Not much, except that trying to fight it in the confined spaces of the facility was a losing proposition.

Decision. When in doubt, use a bigger hammer. His hand ripped off the red cover on a secluded wall panel, one that was labeled “EMERGENCY USE ONLY”. Inside was a red handle next to a small screen that came online instantly, a blank prompt. The base commander typed an alphanumerical string on the provided keypad.
A line of text blinked, twice. Authentication accepted. Another prompt followed and Polignac grabbed Röhm’s collar to bring him around facing the panel. The scientist made a little strangled noise and stared. “Do it ! We have no time !” An instant of hesitation - then the man shook his head as if to clear his mind, having just arrived to the same conclusions as the faster-thinking Drakensis, and started to enter his own memorized authentication string. As his fingers danced on the keypad, his commander’s amplified voice boomed over the hubbub.
“ATTENTION ! THIS IS THE COMMANDER SPEAKING, EVACUATE THE FACILITY AT ONCE ! I REPEAT, EMERGENCY EVAC DRILL !”
All froze momentarily, interrupting whatever they were doing or saying, then the stillness was shattered in a barely-controlled rush to the exit. As serfs and citizens ran and leapt, taking full advantage of the reduced gravity to hasten their flight, Röhm straightened up and faced the Merarch. A new prompt was awaiting on the emergency measures terminal. Several options were listed, each referring to one of the contingency protocols installed during the base’s construction. All were identified by a codeword whose meaning was only known to senior base staff and the Dominarch office.
Polignac entered the matching codeword - EBONY - for his chosen selection - PINEWOOD. The system returned an acceptance message, then a number filled the screen. 200. A second later, it began to increment downwards. 199. 198.

By then Polignac was in full motion again. The stream of fleeing Ops personnel was almost gone from the room, the last out a couple of less fleet-footed serfs climbing the metal steps with a look of panic and fear on their faces. Not fast enough, Anton thought. He reached out and pulled the first one by the arm, using the momentum to thrust him towards the exit, then repeated the motion with the second one, ignoring their yells of discomfort as their joints were bent unceremoniously. A little pain was better than death.

Röhm was already out, unencumbered and running as fast as he could behind the rest. At least the regular drills meant everyone knew what to do and where to go. The bulk of the staff wore regular uniforms and would never have time to don pressure suits. They were running to the vehicle bays, where the first arrivals were already piling in the maglev capsules and wheeled lunar rovers, the cabins crammed with as many men and women as physically possible, the citizens directing the process and shoving frightened serfs like sardines into the hulls. It was necessary - those were trained, valuable servants, familiar and appreciated - but their upbringing made them too hesitant in circumstances like this.
The dozen soldiers in armor had abandoned their shadowing of the alien intruder and ran to the nearest airlock as well, not bothering with normal equalization procedure and blasting out as soon as the inner doors had closed. Out on the crater’s surface, as gas and water vapour froze in the darkside chill, they started to run away in great loping strides, heedless of their limited oxygen supply to put as much distance between themselves and the facility.

Not all made it. A group of serfs led by their Citizen overseer on their way to the closest exit came across the destroyer as it emerged from behind a pair of blast doors. They had only the time to glimpse something so utterly alien to the shapes and structures a human brain took for granted, that their minds froze - just then they felt the touch of the intruder’s mind, if it could be called a mind, stripping their brains like a cold scalpel - ant then nothing more as their constitutive matter, and the complex web of electro-chemical processes that defined their identity, was absorbed into it.

The Datahive destroyer dedicated a few milliseconds of its analytical processes to the decoding of the chemicals’ datastates. It was easy now - they all shared the same underlying structure, and the variations in their analog data-descriptor sets were minimal. Accessing their most recent updates - a significant paradigm shift - their control node - several macro-time-units ago, which qualified as a short moment in their slow, chemical-reaction constrained operating speed - branching logics - those units were designed to value their own survival - logical conclusions, ranked in order of probability.
Increased power deep scans of the surrounding structure. Enemy chemical units were streaming out of the buried structure and the destroyer’s senses could just glimpse the emptiness ouside through the thick electromagnetically-shielded exterior walls, that this burrow had be a mere part of a larger organized entity.
Following them was therefore the most useful course of action. Furthermore, their change of behavior had happened at the same time (accounting for their slower reaction speeds) as a major interruption in the surrounding electronic networks. The offensive data probes were reporting an almost total drop in network traffic, as if the structure-facility was preparing to shut down.

Inside the empty Operations Center, silent save for the mechanical whirrs of air conditioning and the loud insistant whoop whoop of the emergency evacuation alarm, the fast progress of the intruder could be followed in negative as local systems and sensors failed or were cut from their lawful control lines. The commander was alone behind the closed blast doors, cut off from escape - but that wasn’t the point. The intruder had been heading straight for the core sections - where Ops and the main Compcore room were lying. But the steady countdown was reaching its last phase - no more than ten seconds left now - the vehicle bays were open on the black expanse laying beyond their exit tunnels, maglev cars speeding out towards the interior of the crater and the distant lights of the shuttle terminals and landing pads, the slower rovers following on their oversized spun-sapphire wheels and kicking up lunar dust in lazy ballistic arcs lit by floodlights, a column of white-painted mechanical beetles hurrying before a deadly predator overtook them.
If Polignac’s gambit failed, hopefully the Space Force would do the necessary to prevent that thing to go any further.

The countdown reached zero and several things happened in a very short timespan. Every powered door inside the complex opened at once and without warning, in effect negating the damage-containment layout of separated sections and air-tight compartments, while the external doors on every outside access path were locked tight. Dante Base’s Alpha facility had just become a single and seamless atmospheric bubble, in complete opposition to standard safety practice. The only exceptions were the Operations Center where Polignac had manually engaged the access doors’ locks and physically disconnected power to their actuators, and the Compcore room where a signal had just triggered the blasting charges, collapsing the access tunnel on itself and cutting every dataline to the base’s central electronic brain. From now on, Complex A was down to local automation and manual circuits… but it didn’t matter.
The Emergency Measures System was a self-contained collection of parts, hardened and totally isolated from the rest. Every sensitive installation in the Domination had one and provisions for installation and functionality was built-in in every place where things could happen that ought not to contaminate the exterior, and a variety of options were available to the designers to ensure complete neutralization of a threat, be it a highly virulent bioweapon or an invading military unit.
In three separate places inside the complex, mechanisms hidden behind the walls came to life. Valves opened and turbopumps whirred, and a pressurized mist of highly inflammable fluid forcibly mixed with the local air. It took just a few seconds until the mixture cloud reached the optimal size and ratio for a fuel-air explosion, and then the interior of the complex became hell.

Protected by the massive doors of the Ops room, Polignac nevertheless felt and heard the titanic tremor as hypersonic pressure blasts scoured the maze of tunnels that was Dante Base, crushing and incinerating everything inside down to the last bacteria. The thick cermet reinforced gates shuddered but held, and Anton found himself in near-complete darkness, broken only by the dim phosphorescence of emergency lightstrips glowing faintly in the total silence that followed the cleansing inferno.
Cut off from the rest of the world, the Merarch remained motionless clutching the railing, his mind fixated on a single thought - I hope this worked. Finally his training and self-discipline assumed control again and he released his grip. Even if the entity had been destroyed, it would be hours, maybe more, before rescue could reach him through the ravaged tunnels and their scorching radiating heat. It felt like some of it was already seeping through the protective walls. It shouldn’t become life-threatening, but it was still going to be uncomfortably hot inside. On the other hand, the emergency lockers contained the standard assortment of freeze-dried food, drinking water, chemical scrubbers and oxygen candles. His own survival wasn’t at risk - not by environmental causes at least.

Alexandra Jourdain counted the numbers down in her head as the rover, the last one out of the now empty bay, sped from the exit tunnel at the base of the crater’s huge rim. The tunnel was already invisible as a roll in the crater’s floor hid it from view but the floodlit section of cliff-like rimwall was still brightly illuminated, a stain of light grey rock in a sea of darkness. The rover’s own lights were illuminating the ground around it, rapidly shifting bumps and dips and sharp shadows flashing past.
The rover’s interior was double-decked and spacious, as it was intended for days of travel with lifesupport endurance to match, but the present press of bodies wasn’t a normal occurence. Citizens and serfs in various states of dress as they’d rushed out of quarters, and it was a testimony to the seriousness of the situation that nobody was even coping a feel on the three naked serf girls, nor simply ogling, as those not peering through the thick multi-ply windows were busy tending to the few scrapes and bruises sustained during the adrenaline-pumping race to safety.
A pair of Drakensis soldiers was also sitting grim-faced at the rear of the upper compartment, silent and cradling their rifles, their booted feet resting on the coffin-sized rectangular box laying on the floor to save space in the crowded vehicle. The red cross-and-caduceus of the Medical Corps was stenciled on its grey brushed metal top, and a small display was encrusted near the extremity closest to the soldiers and showing status data - with a temperature reading displayed in prominent blue characters. According to the number, the container’s interior was barely over water’s freezing point. An offshoot of the Domination’s cryofreezing technology, the lifesupport box was designed only to stabilize grievously injured personnel until proper medical treatment could be provided. The artificial hibernation state it caused tremendously slowed the degradation of tissue even in case of total cardiac arrest, but it still wasn’t supposed to keep alive someone who was already dead… as Decurion Rayner was.

There was a collective gasp from the serfs inside the rover as a geyser of flame burst noiselessly from a secondary hatch far behind, allowing the inferno inside the evacuated complex to vent itself into cold vacuum. And then something else flowed with it, arcing upwards before falling lazily back on the crater floor.

The decision to exit the structure had proven to be a wise one, yet it had been a very narrow escape. Exterior temperature and pressure had peaked to dangerously high levels, so high in fact that if the hatch hadn’t let go, the Destroyer would have sustained irreversible damage. Even then its power reserve had been drained to resist the firestorm, and self-diagnostic routines warned of loss of function in most subsystems.
Fortunately, the sensory array was still able to complete a short ranged scan and found what the Destroyer needed - point sources of power and raw material to complete repairs. The sources, mechanical constructs containing the carbon-water units encountered earlier which could not operate in cold vacuum, were moving away on rotating motivator wheels and their speed could be matched and overtaken.


Neither the fleeing base personnel nor their alien pursuer could notice the tightbeam laser transmissions crisscrossing space above Dante crater, the coherent light pulses carrying real-time telemetry and instructions in a manner that could not be intercepted by the beings moving below. And the heavy weapon emplacements of the Rim rumbled to life.
“Oh God it’s -” the lone cry was cut off by shock and surprise. The rover’s passengers only caught a very brief glimpse of the thing chasing them, a disturbing collection of geometries and shades that didn’t feel like they ought to exist in this human-centric world, and the maddening distant shape was then blotted from view as the heavy railguns and particle beams opened up on it. Energy beams and projectiles were effectively invisible without an atmosphere to betray their passage, but their effect was not. A wide section of crater floor literally erupted in explosive volcanic fashion, an eerily silent churning of dust and moonrock and lightning-like trails flashing into existence as ions and metal cut through the newly-suspended matter.
The storm lasted for what seemed like hours yet wasn’t more than minutes, and the guns ceased firing, leaving a ragged swirling dust fog behind to slowly settle down on the deeply scarred crater floor.
Nothing emerged from it.

[Baughn]

Aww. Poor thing, it didn't deserve that. It's one of the most likable characters so far.

Good sequence I really liked it. Now do it again.

[iborg]

Aww. Poor thing, it didn't deserve that. It's one of the most likable characters so far.

Good sequence I really liked it. Now do it again.

Well, there's a sarcophagus laying around...
...but what it just might have unplanned side effects to Drakensis physiology.

[Baughn]

Sarcophagus?

I was talking about the Destroyer.

[iborg]

LOL !



Nautona, Tollan Empire
April 8th, 2011


“How is she ?”
Polignac went straight to the point and the Citizen Corps doctor wasn’t unduly surprised. People usually behaved that way when someone theyc ared for was in mortal danger. Good leaders too, when a subordinate was wounded in service.
They also knew when to sit back and let the professionals do their job, although in this case the professionals had merely relied on barely understood alien technology to do the heavy lifting.
The cryobox with Rayner’s body inside was rushed to the still intact and operating Complex B right after the alien war machine was slain on the very marginal chance that her brain wasn’t too damaged and her body could be revived by the sarcophagus in Tanith’s former flagship. It had been a race against time from first to last, the rover racing perilously fast for its high center of gravity body, the stargate dialed manually while Jourdain and her team manhandled the heavy box along the accessways to the embarkation room, and then a maximum acceleration flight from the foreign planet’s surface up to the orbiting Ha’tak.
The scientists and engineers clustered around the sarcophagus were told in very assertive tone to unplug their monitoring and scanning hardware and the damn thing better be still functional or else, and the cryobox was unsealed right next to its Goa’uld big brother. In addition to slowing tissue degradation, the cold had also… solidified the mess that was Rayner’s body. Even then, her flash-cooked and rechilled insides had oozed like bloody slush while she was transferred from one box to the other, leaving a nasty trail of jellied gore on the pristine golden surface. The body, or more accurately the two loosely connected halves were deposited in the Goa’uld healing apparatus and the thing was left to operate its magic, the only human intervention consisting in wiping its exterior clean from the spilled Drakensis broth.

No one knew how long the process would take, if it even succeeded, and Polignac had been quite busy dealing with the alien foothold’s aftermath.
Eventually, after a week of waiting, positive news had come to Luna. The sarcophagus had finally cracked open to reveal a Decurion Rayner that was alive and in one piece again, although her first reaction upon waking up in a Goa’uld sarcophagus again had been to attack the witnesses. Fortunately, she had recognized her Draka siblings just in time, but the lone Tollan observer must have had the fright of his life.
The medical attendants succintly examined her and gave Tetrarch Jourdain the go-ahead to fly her comrade down to the so-called Friendship Base in the Satrian countryside, where more complete medical facilities were available. Her shuttle had landed a half-hour before Polignac himself stepped through the locally-emplaced stargate and was greeted by the chief physician, a fifty-something Old Race Draka whose accent sounded East-Asian, Indochina province maybe.

“Well, Merarch, she’s talking and breathing, at any rate. As to how well that magical alien box repaired her… she looks just fine physically, and she seems to be the same old Ann Rayner in her head, although she doesn’t remember the events that led to her… well, death.”
“Amnesia ?” The single-word question came out more sharply than Anton intended.
“Short-term memory wipe seems it, yeah. I’m not too surprised, really.” The doctor’s tone and body language were the same as used by doctors since time immemorial to defuse the nervousness of patients’ relatives. “There had to be some cellular decay, only slowed by cold and her Drakensis survival mods, and therefore loss of information, starting with the most recent ones. It sticks quite well with our corpus of experience on emergency trauma.”
Anton was well-versed in the theory and practice of emergency medical care and the doctor’s explanation made sense. Compared to every other body part, the brain had to be tricky to repair even by the miraculously advanced Goa’uld technology. Cells and tissue could be regrown or rebuilt, but the intricate network of delicate information stored in neurons, once lost, was gone forever. Losing a mere few days worth of memories was more than fair trade in his opinion, compared to permanent death.
“All right” his immediate concerns mollified by the doctor’s report, Anton continued in a more serene tone “can I see her then ?”
“I don’t see why not. Tell you what, Merarch, why don’t you wait a couple minutes in the gardens and I’ll send her to meet you there. I’m certain she will relish some fresh air after all she went through”
Anton recognized the suggestion as more doctor’s orders. They were probably finishing their poking and prodding inside the med bay and wouldn’t want him intruding. The friendly but firm attitude of his interlocutor as a clear sign of that. He shrugged expressively.
“Thank you Doc, I’ll do that.”

The garden was more like a triangular courtyard squeezed between three of the finished buildings, two of which were dedicated to research behind polarized windows and sensor-shielded walls, the third forming the smallest side of the triangle and housing the mess hall and attached dependencies, its staff made up of Tollan personnel as there was a strict “no-serfs outside Sol and Abydos” policy. In typical Draka and Tollan fashion (something the two cultures appeared to agree on) the empty space was allocated to plantlife. The recently-planted grass and flower beds were still barely registering as tiny green stalks on dark-brown humus, and the young trees were similarly thin, no ticker than the metallic silver supporting stakes. Stakes that actively monitored the plant and its soil, as the eco-conscious Drakas had learnt with great interest, to ensure optimal care for the developing tree. The Conservancy Directorate had already contacted the Tollan manufacturer, and the Landholder League was interested as well. That particular piece of Tollan ingenuity was well positioned to disseminate itself in plantations all over the Domination, either in its native form or an adapted version taking advantage of the Draka’s even more refined biotech.

In any case, the infant garden was still pleasant to be in and Anton allowed himself to relax on a provided bench - another local fixture, an all-weather adaptive-foam shell on a lightweight stainless alloy frame. It certainly beat a wooden bench as far as comfort went. In fact, it felt positively decadent. Another future import, undoubtedly. The construction noises coming from beyond were subdued by attenuation fields and nobody else walked into the garden, although Anton’s keen senses could pick up the muted hints bearing witness to the human activity inside the buildings.
The place was peaceful as intended and Anton was sorely tempted to doze off. He had barely slept in the past week and even his Drakensis physiology had to take a break sometime. Before he could answer the question, the sound of a door sliding with a faint pneumatic hiss recalled him to full awareness. Just as he expected, it was Rayner, her distinctive flaming hair shorter than before, no more than neck-length and spilling freely to frame her high cheekbones. Her blue eyes met Anton’s green ones and locked in joyous recognition. Her lips curled into a genuine smile just as his did, and she hurried her step towards the bench, light white slippers beating the gravel path with soft crunching sounds. She still wore a patient’s gown, nothing more than two white paper rectangles loosely connected by a pair of strings. She wasn’t going to win any modesty contest and if any Tollan happened to look in the garden right now he would certainly get a nice glimpse of her athletic limbs and toned body. Her skin showed her original tone, right out of the shop before any Drakensis accelerated tan, close to alabaster white, highlighted only by the blue lines of subcutaneous blood vessels.

It made for a perfect entry quip, Anton found as he stood up to greet her.
“You need to get in the sun more, Annie-girl !” He grinned wide and brotherly, extending his right arm for the traditional Draka salute, and the resurrected woman clasped it in answer. Both hands squeezed, hers firmer, almost tense, and then she pulled him into a tight embrace. Seconds went by as they stood chest to chest and cheek to cheek, wordlessly, the simple physical contact and scent sharing telling more than words could. Anton found himself patting her back gently and spoke again, softly.
“I guess it sucks to die.”
The woman clutching his back made a short sharp noise, half dejected laugh and half grunt. Unseen by him, her eyes hardened for a brief moment, but he sensed a sudden alteration of her scent, subtle among her flood of relief and happiness pheromones but unmistakable. A small tang of fear, that only lasted a minute instant. He frowned imperceptibly.
“For a moment I thought I was back in Bar’shan’s palace, I… well, the torture, it came back to my mind and…” she took a sharp breath and steeled herself, then unlatched her arms and took a little step back to face Anton.
“I understand” he kept a hand on her shoulder and squeezed softly, then let go and gestured towards the bench. “I’m glad to see you alive and well”. He sat again, and watched her do the same. The motion bent the paper gown, uncovering the side of her breast and Polignac’s gaze flickered down. “You look as gorgeous as ever, though” he quipped and got a chuckle in return.
“Yeah, well, I think Alexandra misses you more, she told me a week without release was starting to drive her mad to the point where she’d rape some poor random Tollan” she laughed. “You’d better do something about it !”
“All right, I will, once I’m sure you’re all well.”

She looked at him, sensing his deeply-rooted concern. It was altogether too weird, twice she had come back from the dead on him. As a commander, he had the right to be unsettled. As a friend, his care was heart-felt. She let her fingers brush his side and the fabric of his casual uniform, then readjusted the front of her slacks to hide the pink nipple that was proudly perking up. It seemed that sarcophagus therapy also recharged libido as far as her experience went, or maybe it was just the normal aftereffect of having cheated death - which her past life in the Force certainly supported.
“I’m fine, really” it felt disturbingly as if she was trying to persuade herself, but she smiled gamely “the docs told me all my organs are the right size and shape and I only suffered short-term amnesia, not unsurprising in my case. I’m just, well… adjusting to the thought that I died and came back to life, again.” She cocked her head and made a little go-on gesture. “Why don’t you tell me what happened after I died ? They only told me the general story up there.”

Anton nodded and crossed his arms.
“Well, after you died -”
“Eh” Ann’s eyes widened “my team, nobody told me about them -”
“Sorry, they didn’t make it” he shook his head sadly. “You were the only one in a… retrievable state.”
“Oh.” Anton saw her dejected look and went on to take her mind off her fallen men.
“I was saying, then, the intruder started to wreak merry havoc inside the complex and the isolation measures weren’t able to hold it in place…” The redhead woman listened raptly as her commander narrated the destruction of Complex A and the final stand inside the Rim. Her nostrils flared savagely at the mention of the intruder’s death through massively superior firepower.
“…two hours later we had the spare gatedialer installed in the Embarkation room and the shuttle sent by Schneider was down on a landing pad with the Type Fourteen on board. We got it in front of the gate, prepped it and then dialed out to that damn machine world, just long enough to push the warhead into the wormhole.”
“And ?”
“The event horizon flashed white and vanished.”
“Oh.” That sounded pretty anticlimactic. Polignac saw his subordinate’s disappointment.
“Well, we tried to dial again five minutes later and couldn’t. We’re assuming the far gate was destroyed along with a large chunk of country around it.”
“Good for the fuckers.”
“And Castle Tarleton marked that particular planet for later reconnaissance whenever we start sending FTL ships on interplanetary missions. They’re very keen on erasing that threat from existence for good.”
His grin was hungry.
“Let em eat cee-fractional rocks !”

A short shared laughter, and he pinched Rayner’s naked thigh. “Okay, and I came to tell you in person -” he paused and stared straight in her eyes, his expression business-like, “after your recent experiences, I think you qualify for an extended leave” he raised his hand palm outwards to prevent her from interrupting “and you’re not allowed to say no. Actually, we won’t be doing much outbound exploration in the near future with half the base burnt to a crisp. The engineers told me it would take at least five months to rebuild, many sections have stress fissures and need to be entirely resheathed. So… yes, you can and will take a vacation.”
He waved his arm around. “Look, why don’t you spend some time touring Tollan-country ? Nice pleasant worlds as far as I’ve seen,” his mouth split in a wide grin “and the locals absolutely love us, would you believe that !”.
Rayner chuckled and nodded slowly.
“Well, it seems like I don’t have a choice anyway.”
“Good girl ! You have fun and get any post-resurrection stress out of your system. I’ll be waiting for you in a month’s time at the earliest. That’s an order !”
She smiled gamely. “Yes, Sir !”

[Baughn]

Well, now they're fucked. Yay!

The datahive's technology level is, canonically, several levels above that of any entity in the SG-verse, excluding only possibly the ancients (and I wouldn't bet on those). What saved everyone else was that they were never provoked into going off-planet.

Now? Assuming they weren't all living within range of the gate (which would be bizarre), they're likely to stage a Von Neumann's War type expansion. They have the technology, and they lack any inclinations against it.

This means, at the very least, that they'll be covering that solar system by the time anyone gets there. If they haven't figured out FTL by then, they will, shortly afterwards. When hard SF and soft SF collide, hard wins, and these guys make the replicators look foolish.

Lovely, just lovely. I'm rubbing my hands in glee at the not-really-imminent-but-still destruction of human life in this universe.

[Simon_Jester]

As you said. Cthulhu has a higher utilitarian value than Draka.