Chapter 13: Chapter 13 Atlantis
Upon arriving at Atlantis, it was shrouded in darkness. However, Xion used nanites to enhance his vision and detect energy sources, eventually reaching the ZPM room. There, he extracted the massive energy source, two meters tall and one meter wide, from his storage bracelet and connected it.
Atlantis regained sufficient energy, so Xion returned to the control room and connected everything. It took him a day, lacking assistance and knowledge. Nevertheless, he successfully opened Janus's laboratory, where the nanites were stored.
This took time since there was no expedition or time travel in this timeline that prepared Atlantis for use. Xion had to reconnect everything. The advantage was that Janus's time machine was still in the city, available for later use.
After reconnecting the consoles, Xion went to Janus's lab, using all available resources to create a replicator army. He ordered them to devour the jumpers, except Janus's time machine, and anything else scattered around, needing overwhelming numerical superiority.
…
When the replicators finished, there were over a hundred thousand, but that wasn't enough. Xion searched the city's archives for a second copy of Atlantis, knowing a kind of kingdom had been established there. He commanded the replicators to devour the entire city.
…
Three days later, his army had grown to millions, forming a mass of creatures in front of the portal of the devoured city, awaiting orders.
While replicators devoured the city, Xion investigated Atlantis's database for information on the Asurans and their programming codes. His knowledge was insufficient, but he found the Asurans' location and sent his millions-strong replicator army to sweep through the Asuran city.
Replicators in the Pegasus Galaxy differed from those in the Asgard Galaxy. Pegasus replicators lacked the ability to change their own programming, unlike their Asgard counterparts, experienced in handling vast insectoid replicator armies. The Pegasus replicators were different.
Created by tree-huggers, they couldn't alter their programming or attempt to change others'. The insectoid replicator wave swept them away effortlessly, as they unsuccessfully tried to increase their numbers by printing more copies. There were too few printers, easily taken over by the insectoid replicators, modifying them to replicate using stored neutronium, recovering from minimal losses.
Human replicators' defenses were pathetic. They attempted shields, but insectoid replicators overcame them in less than a minute. Trying to close doors, acid spit made them less effective than any shield.
Amidst the battle, Xion infiltrated the replicator wave entering through the portal, seizing control of the city. Using his ancient genes, he interacted with it, wresting control from the foolish replicators. They constructed an imitation of Atlantis, even creating the interface allowing the Ancients to interact with the city, granting access to its systems.
…
When the city fell under his control in less than an hour, and the human replicators were eliminated, Xion sighed. Knowing the weaknesses of these types, anyone could make them bite the dust. Xion could only sigh at how easy it was to obtain the most advanced technologies in this universe if you knew where to look and what to do.
Now, his next target was the Wraith. They were several times easier than the replicators, as they were dormant, and their hives were in suspended animation. He only needed some preparations to face them.
…
With the city captured, Xion gained an incredible amount of resources, including twelve Aurora battleships, plants, factories, and shipyards. The human replicators, along with a copy of Atlantis, had an entire industrial city at their disposal with probe factories and more.
Xion, not being an Ancient and having no intention of using their useless weapons and ships, used the plants and factories of the human replicators to create some defensive technology. He built three spheres, each a meter and a half in diameter, capable of hiding and floating behind him, with multiple devices for defense, including weapons and shields. Each of them had a ZPM as an energy source. For himself, he created a personal shield generator and a personal invisibility system. This wasn't something he did personally. He simply programmed the city to build them, along with thousands of replicator-bodied robots performing all physical tasks for him.
While the things he ordered were being built, Xion downloaded some knowledge into his own mind, such as ZPM manufacturing. As fans imagined, it was challenging to do, and human replicators only had twenty of them. Creating the subspace energy extraction dimension was not easy and took decades to meet the ZPM's energy extraction requirements. That's why the Ancients used lower-performing energy sources that depleted faster. It was a mixed technology, combining a subspace energy source with a conventional energy source requiring materials like naquadah. Xion recalled that the Asgard did something similar, but their energy sources were based on neutronium.
ZPMs were not cost-effective in the long run, and any civilization relying on them as an energy source would either lag behind or be destroyed in any conflict due to their scarcity. The next thing Xion downloaded was knowledge about probes that could penetrate shields.
It was technology similar to ZPM but couldn't be relied upon for survival since it consumed matter and didn't perform compared to energy weapons. They could only be used as strategic weapons, being a massive waste of resources despite being easy to produce. Lastly, Xion downloaded the few medical and genetic knowledge the replicators possessed, mostly acquired during their encounters with the Wraith.
In Xion's opinion, Ancient war technology was rubbish. This didn't mean it wasn't advanced, as probes were one of the most powerful weapons in this world, penetrating any shield as if it weren't there. However, they had the fatal drawback of being single-use, like missiles. For obvious reasons, they were strategic weapons, and trying to win a war with them would be the downfall of any civilization. Unfortunately for the Ancients, they never grasped the concept of wartime economy, and that was their end.
On the other hand, there were ZPMs, the second cause of the Ancients' downfall. ZPMs were the ultimate energy source created by the Ancients. Incredibly stable, easy to use with any interface, and extremely easy to regulate, supplying only the required power and nothing more. In theory, you could even connect a simple household fan to them without issues.
So, the question was: if they were so intelligent, why did they disappear? The answer was simple: survival and success, much as people insist, don't rely solely on intelligence. Adaptability, cunning, imagination, and, of course, the will to live and prevail are more important.
All of these were things the Ancients lacked, evident in their technology. Probes, strategic weapons that a species like humans would only use as strategic due to their high economic cost, were the Ancients' flagship weapon.
ZPMs were more of the same, an immensely powerful energy source that was the best they knew, but it required specialized facilities for manufacturing and literally the creation of a stable artificial dimension, taking decades to achieve. If they were humans, they would only use them strategically and never depend on them in a war. But for the Ancients, they were the standard and, in the end, they had nothing.
ZPMs also fell into the hands of the Specters, who adapted them for their own use instantly, defeating the Ancients with their own weapons. In conclusion, the Ancients would hardly score a five out of ten in survival; they were complete incompetents. A race like the Asgard or humans, with the same technology, would have disposed of the Specters in a couple of days.
…
After taking a day off, Xion took five jumpers, filled them with replicators, and headed to a planet identified by the replicators as a Wraith hideout. There, he used invisibility to enter unnoticed and deployed the replicators to capture the queen and keep the hive dormant.
He achieved this by acting stealthily and putting the queen to sleep without her realizing, using a weapon similar to Linea's and plunging her into what seemed like a natural dream, without triggering any alarms. Then, the replicators took care of everything, keeping them in a virtual dream while he downloaded knowledge from their brains and stored it in the replicators since he still had O'Neill's body and didn't want his head to explode.
To address this, Xion started a project he called "bio-nanites," combining nanite technology with Specter biotechnology. These bio-nanites wouldn't have the same capabilities as nanites, as they weren't digital, and biological cells couldn't compare to Naquadah or neutronium in terms of providing energy.
Xion had several reasons for creating the bio-nanites, including the aggressiveness of Specter cells, which could be used to modify DNA and physical form visibly. If this process were enhanced, bio-nanites would be the most powerful biological weapon that existed, just as nanites were the most advanced technological weapon. In addition to all this, Xion needed a ship, so he began modifying the hive ship to create a super bio-ship.
…
After initiating the creation of bio-nanites and the bio-ship, Xion returned to Atlantis to use the time ship built by Janus and travel a hundred years into the past.
Xion didn't use the portal or take any action; he simply used the ship to move and time travel. In doing so, he replaced a ZPM in the city and then used the portal to return to Earth. He didn't use the time ship to pass through the portal; only he entered along with his three guardian spheres, which had been modified with biotechnology. Sensors, a dematerialization beam, and matter storage had been added to them, in addition to all previous enhancements like weapons, shields, and a platform to use them as transport rings.
Xion knew that the portal to Earth would be covered in ice, so he used an overload to force it to activate and clear the area.
Stepping out onto the observation post through the portal, Xion cleared the area, and after scanning the surroundings, he captured his target—an Alteran who had been there for millions of years and was semi-ascended. Xion placed her in one of the bio-spheres and then used one of them to connect to the portal, providing energy to call Atlantis.
With his target captured, Xion had nothing else to do there, so he left a bio-sphere behind to erase all traces and leave everything as it was before he arrived. The bio-spheres would hide until, in the future, he returned to the Milky Way galaxy.
Xion returned to Atlantis exactly one second after leaving. He used the Stargate and went straight to the bio-ship under construction to begin his second research, focusing on improving his own body. For this, he had Wraith biotechnology, the most advanced among all the advanced races he knew.
He also had Alteran biotechnology, deficient in almost everything, and advanced knowledge in human genetics and biology, stored in the nanites in Argos. As materials, he had O'Neill's human genetics, Alteran genetics from the captured Alteran woman, who was also semi-ascended, and Wraith genetics, of which he had thousands of samples. In addition to the Wraith themselves, there were their ships, a treasure trove of biotechnology, but he would first concentrate on obtaining a suitable body, and he already had everything he needed.
…
Two months into the Pegasus galaxy, Xion acquired his new body—a mix of Wraith, Ancient, and human—with a greater predominance of Wraith traits, as they represented almost the pinnacle of a biological body. His new body didn't match his divine body in terms of strength and physical endurance because, despite their longevity and advanced regenerative abilities, Wraith were as fragile as a human; a firearm or even a knife could easily cut them.
On the other hand, thanks to the study of the semi-ascended Alteran's body and mind, and the Wraith themselves, he had gained psychic abilities, something he didn't have before. He had telekinesis, telepathy, healing, and many more psychic abilities.
These abilities depended on his mind, and although he now had a superbrain that couldn't be compared to a human's, increasing his intelligence dozens of times, it didn't grant him much. If he faced the technology and weapons of this world, his psychic shields wouldn't hold up for long; a Goa'uld ha'tak ship would tear him apart, and he couldn't do anything against its shields.
This didn't mean he was a weak semi-ascended compared to a Prior Ori, whose psychic shields could withstand the shots from an entire fleet of ships. What priors did was cheat because they had an amplifier for their abilities—the Ori crystal they carried in their staffs. That small artifact made them invincible, and they could only be defeated if their abilities were sealed. But Xion had no similar technology and had to settle for being a common semi-ascended. Anyway, he had three bio-spheres always behind him, powered by three ZPMs; his psychic abilities were just an addition, something he found interesting to investigate.
…
In these two months, his bio-nanite project to increase compatibility with organic matter was also completed. These bio-nanites became part of his body, forming an integral part of his neural network, enhancing the psychic capabilities of his body. With the quantity of bio-nanites he was creating, not even the Specter queens collectively could compete with him.
…
With his new body and the bio-nanites ready, Xion continued his research and development of his spaceship, based on a modified Wraith hive adapted to Ancient technology. He could use the bio-nanites and three ZPMs to complete it in just days, but it pained him to waste such scarce energy sources on building his ship. So, he returned to Atlantis to gather information about Project Arcturus and its location.
This time, Xion already had all the knowledge of the Ancients and the Wraith in his own brain and bio-nanite network. Therefore, obtaining everything he wanted was easy. He also ordered the replicators to clean Atlantis, removing the artifact that blocked hyperspace entry, all information about replicators, nanites, Project Arcturus, and nanite-based weapons. Additionally, he released a smoke creature that the Alterans used to experiment with. Those Alterans could be real jerks. They had left and left the creature locked up for ten thousand years.
…
After visiting the Project Arcturus planet and collecting all its data, Xion returned to the Asuran city, which had specialized facilities that Atlantis lacked, and proceeded to create his own power source. However, he didn't do the same as the Alterans by creating a force field, nor did he adopt McKay's solution of sending the waste to someone else's home, which he found immoral at the time. If those particles fell in an inhabited place with many people, and the technology wasn't advanced enough to complain to McKay, everyone would have died. From that point of view, it was a rather sadistic experiment.
Xion had a better solution, creating an artificial dimension similar to those used by ZPMs or subspace energy sources to dispose of the waste. Of course, it wouldn't be as elaborate as to take a hundred years to set up, as the setup didn't matter to him. He didn't need to extract energy from there; he just needed to dispose of the waste, so he didn't need to build a complex structure—just dig a hole, which could be done in a few hours.
…
Once finished, Xion sent the power source he named Dimensional Energy Source 1.0, or DES 1.0, along with the replicators, to install it on his bio-ship and then activate it. In case something went wrong, he decided to stay in the Asuran city and monitor the replicators while they activated DES 1.0. He was confident in its success, but as a precaution, he decided to stay behind. The Wraith were in the bio-ship, but he couldn't be bothered to take them out; he didn't care if the leeches turned to space dust in case DES 1.0 blew up the solar system where the developing bio-ship was.
…
Fortunately for the Wraith, things went well, and DES 1.0 worked wonderfully, integrating into the bio-ship and generating twenty times the energy provided by a ZPM. Its estimated maximum performance duration was around ten years before it would be necessary to adjust it to dispose of the attached dimension and replace it with a new one.
With all this available energy, the bio-ship accelerated its development by a thousand percent, meaning it would be ready in days, and with the support of the bio-nanites, this timeframe was reduced to just one day. As he assumed, bio-nanites had no rival in genetic reorganization and modification of biological structures. They could modify a human-sized body in minutes and a five-kilometer bio-ship in a day.
Neutronium nanites couldn't do such a thing because they acted on organisms, while bio-nanites adapted and became part of them, integrating and functioning as another source of production, construction, and reorganization. The obvious disadvantage was that they lost all their digital capacity, so he still required the support of neutronium nanites to function as an integrated computer.
…
Two months and a week after arriving in the Pegasus galaxy, Xion already had a new body and a bio-ship, so he began preparations for the next phase of his plan and created satellite bio-spheres to distribute them throughout the Pegasus galaxy, aiming to locate any Ancients who might still be there.
Additionally, he sent some of them to search for those he knew were traveling towards the Milky Way galaxy at the speed of light. It was like finding a needle in a universe, but Xion plotted several routes with Atlantis as the central reference point, covering a swath of five thousand light-years toward the Milky Way galaxy.
Distributing the bio-spheres would take a day using the Stargates, and Xion decided to investigate something else that was also important: his divine cells, to see if they became useless or could serve him in the future.
…
Xion obtained results after just a few hours of research. His divine cells were not damaged; they only had trouble adapting to this new universe. Nevertheless, they weren't paralyzed and were assimilating his new body constantly.
The problem was that they did so at an extremely slow pace, and at the current rate, it would take thousands of years to fulfill their purpose. However, the assimilation speed increased over time, and according to his projections, in fifty years, they would have overcome this universe and achieved their goal, restoring all his abilities, body, and divine power.
Fifty years might seem like a significant problem, but he had a time machine, and he could simply move fifty years into the past and wait in some quiet place to become a god. The problem with that was if he became a god again, he was sure the ascended beings would treat him as an equal, and that meant they wouldn't let him act on the material plane. To do so, he would have to wage war against them, and despite being confident of winning because he knew their weakness and could get rid of all ascended beings in a galaxy at will, that would be genocide, and he wasn't that kind of person.
As he wasn't willing to kill to impose his will—or, more accurately, wasn't willing to kill those he considered good people to impose his will—he wouldn't use the time machine to become a god. Nothing in this reality could be a threat to him, and he could do whatever he wanted while gathering all the knowledge of this universe as a mortal. He would then act as a god when the time came, not before. He had already befriended all the people who helped him in this universe, and he still had many things to do. He wouldn't discard everything and return; that served no purpose at the moment, especially when time, for him, was now insignificant. For all these reasons, becoming a god would have to wait a little longer.
…
With his confidence restored and the assurance of being able to return and reconnect with his other half, Xion continued with his plans for this mortal plane. His bio-ship was ready, but it didn't have the appearance of a Wraith bio-ship. Xion named it Titan.
Titan had a length of five kilometers and a width of three, with arms reaching six kilometers. Its exterior and interior design were similar to that of the Goa'uld, but with some notable differences. The pyramid was larger compared to the black framework, making the latter appear elongated instead of having the traditional hexagonal shape.
The arms were also longer and featured extended horizontal antennas accompanying them. These antennas served as receptors for sensors capable of penetrating a planet. Finally, the pyramid was not hollow; Xion had added a shipyard for bio-ships inside it in case he ever wanted to build a probe factory and additional space for any future needs. For the time being, the vacant space was designated for storage or warehouses.
The entire outer framework was armor, made of an alloy of Naquadah, trinium, and neutronium. If any shot penetrated the Atlantis shields, it would be absorbed by the armor, utilizing technology similar to Anubis's warrior armor. In terms of weaponry, it had probes with antimatter warheads as strategic weapons, plasma repeaters, three thousand heavy plasma cannons, a thousand impact electromagnetic cannons (just in case it encountered technology capable of absorbing energy like his), twenty particle cannons similar to the Atlantis defense satellite, cloaking capability, Atlantis shields, Atlantis hyperdrive, and all sustained by three FED 1.0s—one for weapons, one for shields, and the last for everything else. It's worth noting that each FED 1.0 generated twenty times more energy than a ZPM. Due to this, Xion had complete confidence in his current military capabilities.
…
Xion reached the Titan's bridge via a transporter beam from his bio-spheres, which connected with the ship's transporter. While this technology was useful, requiring both an origin and a destination point meant it lacked the versatility of Asgard transport technology.
Xion projected a hologram of the Titan in front of him. He reviewed various systems, weapons, Atlantis shields, probes, and the integration between the hull and the bio-ship. The hull and internal decoration resembled heavy armor, but with a power source twenty times more potent than a ZPM, the Titan was incredibly lightweight for its size.
Satisfied with the results of his efforts, Xion began deploying spheres to store the replicators monitoring the planet. Then, he set his course for the Asuran city. With a FED 1.0 power source and a maximum speed of 1.4 billion times the speed of light, the bio-ship took a couple of minutes to reach the Asuran city. Asgard hyperdrives were much faster, but he lacked that technology. In fact, if it weren't for the extraordinary energy efficiency of the bio-ship, surpassing even Alteran ships by ten times, it wouldn't exceed a speed of around 700 million times the speed of light.
Upon arriving over the Asuran city, Xion deployed an army of over five thousand bio-spheres over the city and began dematerializing it. Xion lowered the bio-ship to assist, and in a matter of minutes, every trace of the Asurans in the area had turned into stored resources, except for four out of the twelve Aurora-class battleships, which he left for the Alterans he intended to rescue. He then supplied Atlantis with common materials and probes, repaired the defensive satellite, and added shields and defensive weapons because, despite having a powerful weapon, it was ineffective as a defensive tool.
…
After completing all the work, Xion checked his satellite network to locate ancient ships that might still be active in the galaxy and stationary. Humans were on those ships, and if they were in motion, they wouldn't be the ones he sought. Three options of static ships appeared, and Xion used his satellites to send them a signal, to which the ships automatically responded. That's how insecure Alteran technology was. Xion identified the ship he was looking for and set course for its location. Upon arrival, he surveyed the area for Wraith but found none, as the damaged Aurora battleship had not triggered an emergency signal.
Xion deployed a hundred bio-spheres and sent them to explore, discovering Alterans in stasis. He stored them in the bio-spheres and dematerialized the damaged Aurora battleship to avoid wasting resources by leaving it abandoned.
…
Afterward, Xion set course for Atlantis and released the Alterans from the bio-spheres to inject nanites and rejuvenate their bodies. Upon completion, he removed the nanites since the Alterans were purists and frowned upon altering their bodies. The treatment took several days, during which the bio-spheres sent to the Milky Way located the Alteran ship traveling at the speed of light. It took only a few days to find them, and they were right in the center of the trajectory he plotted. Xion headed toward them, utilizing the bio-ship's maximum speed.
In the meantime, he awakened the Alterans and transported them to his bridge using the bio-spheres as transport rings.
…
"Welcome," Xion said.
All the rescued Alterans, including the Alteran captured on Earth, were there. Having just awakened, they were surprised to be there and puzzled by the strange design of the ship. The bridge resembled that of the Goa'uld, with its throne and all, but it was actually an Asgard design, with a large space devoid of consoles, only the throne integrated into the ship's telepathic control system.
"A Wraith!" exclaimed one of the guests in fear. Xion sighed.
Xion looked nothing like a Wraith. His hair was golden and smooth as silk. His eyes had turned white due to semi-ascended enhancements and bore no resemblance to Wraith reptilian eyes. His skin was pale but smooth, without a trace of the Wraith's fish and insect-like skin. If he had to describe himself, he would be a tall, 6'3" blond man with an inverted triangle face, white eyes, pale skin, and a statue-like body, dressed casually in pants, a shirt, and sneakers. If he had to guess why he was mistaken for a Wraith, he'd say it was an Alteran sixth sense.
"My name is Xion. I come from Earth, the planet you know as Terra in the Milky Way galaxy. I am the captain of the Titan, the bio-ship you are currently on," Xion said, pointing forward, where a hologram of the Titan appeared, indicating its scale. "I am not a Wraith, but this body was created using genetic information from Wraiths, Alterans, and humans, which is my original species," Xion explained with a sigh. "But we're not here to talk about me; we're here to talk about you."
"Ten thousand years have passed since the Wraith-Lantean war ended. You lost. But some survivors remain, and I am rescuing them. At this moment, this ship is heading towards one of your vessels stranded on the way to the Milky Way, and my goal is to reach you and return you to the city of Atlantis. For that, I sent some of my bio-spheres, and now I am about to make contact, so you either stop and wait for us, or use the resources in the bio-spheres to repair your ship's hyperdrive and shorten our journey to meet you," Xion explained.
An older man, around forty or fifty years old, stepped forward along with just over a hundred people. Xion noticed the beautiful blonde woman by his side, a lovely woman who, in the original story, had suffered the tragic fate of being fed upon until death by a Wraith.
"I am Captain Pylos of the Aurora. Thank you for rescuing us, but if ten thousand years have passed, how is it possible that our appearances haven't changed?" the man asked.
"I rejuvenated your bodies to the state they were in when you underwent stasis," Xion explained. "Now pay attention. I'll let the Lanteans on the ship see that we're here," Xion said, sending the command for five spheres to deactivate their camouflage and attempt to contact the ancient ship. The attempt failed, but a minute later, the ship began to slow down, making communication possible.
A hologram of a seemingly fifty-year-old blonde woman projected between Xion and the Aurora's crew.
"I am Captain Helia of the Lantean warship Grilas. Identify yourself, please," the woman requested. In the original story, she had a bad temper, but here she seemed humble. Xion projected an image of his bridge and his bio-ship.
"I am Xion, captain of the Titan. These spheres are drones, and this is a rescue mission for you and your crew. With me are some of your fellow Lanteans whom I rescued on a previous mission," Xion explained, pointing to Captain Pylos and his crew.
"Captain Pylos, how is this possible? It should have been more than ten thousand years for you," Helia said, frowning. Pylos also frowned.
"I'm just as confused. My crew and I have just awakened," Pylos explained. "Captain Xion told us he found us in stasis and altered our state to rejuvenate our bodies," he added. Helia frowned.
"That's… well," she said at last without much enthusiasm. "What species do you belong to, Captain Xion? Your appearance is something we haven't seen before," Helia asked.
"Originally, I was a human from Earth, but I lost my original body, and after a cosmic incident, I ended up in another man's body. Since this one wasn't suitable for me, I created this body for myself, which is mainly Wraith, with a bit of yours and my original species, humans," Xion explained.
"Wraith!" Helia said alarmed. Xion nodded.
"They possess interesting technology and are very good at creating bodies. Although they keep draining the life out of everyone they encounter," Xion said with a sigh. "Nevertheless, their technology is useful, and as I needed it to save some good friends of both of ours, I captured one of their hives and studied it. Now I have their queen and crew in stasis, in one of the cargo holds of the Titan. I hope that after signing a peace treaty with them, I can release them," Xion explained.
"Are there Wraith on this ship?" Captain Pylos asked with an alarmed tone. Xion nodded.
"Where do you think I got this body from?" Xion asked.
"Do you plan to sign a peace treaty with the Wraith? That's impossible; we tried it before and failed," Captain Helia said.
"Actually, you are fools. At that time, the Wraith were already losing the war, but thanks to the Potentias they were gifted, they created more clones and an army of bio-ships to attack Atlantis," Xion said, and the Lanteans looked surprised. "Well, you can't expect much from tree-hugging species. After this rescue, I'll return you to Atlantis. I've left ten Potentias there and four Aurora battleships. I've stocked the holds with probes and left materials so you can build whatever you need.
"After that, I'll offer a new food source to the Wraith. At the moment, they are weakened and won't be able to recover soon since they have no Potentias or other energy sources to start a war."
Also, they are reduced in number, at most around two hundred hives. If they don't accept peace and stop feeding on other intelligent species, I'll put them to sleep along with the other Wraith in the cargo hold. Now that no one will help them resist, I believe there's a great opportunity to sign a peace treaty," Xion explained.
"Two hundred hives?" Pylos asked somewhat stunned. Xion nodded.
"Don't worry; Wraith technology has many weaknesses. If exploited correctly, two hundred of their ships mean nothing. You lost because you were tree-huggers. Humans are better at this war business… Well, maybe it's just that we had no other choice. You can't say humanity has had an easy path, or that it will in the future," Xion reflected.
"Excuse me, I'm Guebra, first officer of the Aurora. What do you mean by a tree-hugger species?" Guebra asked. Xion looked her up and down.
"Pacifists who curl up and cry when things go wrong, when someone equally strong or more advanced confronts them. They also tend to flee," he said, looking significantly at Captain Helia. The Lanteans seemed annoyed and somewhat uncomfortable, but none of them dared to insult him.
"Does that mean humans choose war to resolve their conflicts?" Pylos asked disapprovingly. Xion shook his head and then nodded.
"Yes and no. Humans don't form a homogeneous group. Each individual does as they please, as long as they can and there's no one to stop them. Generally, more populous human civilizations establish order and possess a moral code.
"Deciding to go to war or seek peace depends on what that civilization or people consider right or wrong. However, this is not absolute, as we also have a survival instinct. If we believe something is wrong, but it's the only option for survival, it's likely to be carried out anyway. Nevertheless, this is not a general rule, as there are also many peaceful people on our side, and even entire nations that embrace peace, like yours, the tree-huggers.
"Among the more advanced ones are the Tollan. They are as rigid and lacking in personality as you, with an almost psychotic tendency to defend their laws and apply them. But there are also other peoples without any technology that can embrace peace. I once visited a planet where a Goa'uld was experimenting with humans to get better hosts. The Goa'uld had used nanites to shorten their lives to a hundred days. The poor souls didn't know, and they lived very happily, singing and dancing all day," Xion said, shaking his head.
"That's horrible. Who are these Goa'uld, and why did they do something like that?" Captain Helia asked.
"The Goa'uld are a symbiotic species. You should probably know them already. They left their world and found the technology they left in our galaxy. Then they came to Earth and encountered our primitive ancestors, enslaving them and taking them to thousands of other worlds as slaves, servants, and warriors. They also used us as hosts; apparently, they liked us because they abandoned all the species they parasitized and focused exclusively on us. They formed a complete empire in the Milky Way and exterminated any advanced civilization they found.
"Fortunately for humans, the Goa'uld depleted the resources and technology you left on Earth, and they were only interested in it to keep obtaining slaves. However, there was a rebellion, and the gate was buried five thousand years ago.
"Since Earth humans were primitive, the Goa'uld in charge was too lazy to bombard a planet without resources, and over time, they forgot about humanity. But now, humanity has left Earth, stolen Goa'uld technology, and will start a war that will destroy them in the near future throughout the galaxy," Xion explained. The Lanteans blinked occasionally during his explanation, but otherwise remained motionless.
"How do you know all these things?" Pylos asked seriously.
"Magic," Xion said with a smile, then looked at Captain Helia. "The spheres contain materials and tools with which you can repair your ship. Allow me to board or wait for us to arrive there, in a day…"
"Are you an Ascended?" asked the Alteran woman he rescued from Earth. She established a telepathic communication. Xion grimaced and looked at her. She seemed somewhat excited. Her abilities meant she could ascend, but it wasn't certain. Xion remembered Oma Desala. If this woman wanted to ascend, he could guide her on the right path.
"If I were Ascended, I couldn't talk to you. I'm just someone who wants to fix a few things and then return to a life of peace. If you want to ascend, I can take you to a place where they'll help you achieve it," Xion replied, also using telepathy. The others noticed their secret conversation and sensed the woman's excitement afterward, but they didn't possess that ability and couldn't know what they said.
"Thank you! Please, guide me," the woman said sincerely and bowed. This time, she used her voice, realizing it was impolite to speak secretly in front of others. Xion cleared his throat.
"Captain Helia, as I was saying…"
"Who are you?" Captain Pylos asked the Alteran woman, interrupting their conversation.
"I'm Sira. I inhabited Earth before my people left. I stayed behind due to being a carrier of the plague. He rescued me and healed my body, bringing me here with you," explained the Alteran woman.
"Have you rescued more people like us?" Captain Pylos asked excitedly.
"You're the only ones I know of…" Xion frowned. There was still Merlin. But Merlin was an Ascended; he didn't think he would want to return with this group. Besides, he didn't think like them, and there were suspicions he had spread his genes all over Earth.
"I know one more, but I don't think he'd want to come back with you. He doesn't share your policies and likely wants to ascend after I rescue him," Xion explained. Or maybe not, Xion thought after speaking. Merlin had spent years fighting the Ascended; it was possible he would want to return to Earth.
"Was he also an Ascended?" Sira asked excitedly. Everyone looked at him, and Xion looked at Sira threateningly, making her shrink in embarrassment.
Xion sighed. Anyway, in the Milky Way galaxy, they already considered him Ascended. It was also useful for talking and not having to explain anything, as everything he knew was because he was Ascended. Xion shrugged.
"Well, it doesn't matter. Let's continue with the rescue plan. Captain Helia, will you wait for us or repair your ship and come to meet us? Keep in mind that I have few virtues, and patience is not one of them," Xion confessed. Captain Helia smiled.
"We will use the resources in the spheres," said the captain. Xion nodded and made the necessary arrangements. Then he gave permission to the Lanteans to stretch their legs around the place or go see the Wraith in the suspended animation hold.
There weren't many things to do on his ship at the moment. He planned to create a game room, but that would be when he returned to Earth.
"Can we meditate?" Sira asked. She seemed eager to ascend.
"What is ascending like?" asked a Lantean who was already on his way out, but upon hearing about meditation, he seemed excited… for some incomprehensible reason to Xion.
"It's like being dead," Xion said honestly. "You can't do anything fun, and there are too many rules…" Xion looked the bald man up and down. He had forgotten who he was talking to. "Forget what I said earlier; it's probably paradise for you," Xion said, shaking his head and rising from his throne to approach Sira, indicating for her to sit on the floor while he sat on his knees. He had been meditating a lot due to loneliness and boredom. He really regretted leaving his game console at the SGC and considered several times going back for it.
The bald man approached them and asked for permission to sit. Xion nodded and asked them to join hands.
…
After meditating, Xion went to sleep out of boredom and decided that once he brought the Lanteans back to Atlantis, he would call Earth to have them send his games.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone