First of Eight Forges
The River Capital
(June 2000)
The world he was visiting today, or at least this part of it was a semi arid expanse of terrain that reminded him vaguely of the Sudan. The world in question would have been what passed for 'developed' by Goa'uld standards. It had a population roughly comparable globally to Stennos, or to medieval Europe. It was unfortunately a largely illiterate population that toiled in bronze age agriculture and mining ventures in order to support themselves, which actually made the fact they had been able to sustain that large of population impressive. With the introduction of more 'modern' agriculture from Stennos the population would likely boom in short order. Not that he would likely be around to see the results of that, that was why there needed to be a more coherent state of affairs. That was why any theological quibbles could be potentially dangerous, but especially once he was gone.
Ishtar was waiting on the other side with a procession of mixed human and jaffa clergy. Zeus's handpicked experts had already started paving the roads, and Raptors had begun the expansion of the gate area. It was the river that was the more immediate area of concern... it was bluntly speaking a septic mess, unsurprising given its use as a trash dump. If it had just been urban waste, the by products of human, and animal waste, the by products of the tanners and dye makers it wouldn't have been nearly as much of an issue. The problem was the mining waste was going into it as well, iron, gold, as well as more exotic mining by products like naquadah or trinium.
In Amestris Alchemy had been uncommon enough that what his most likely course of action would be had been all but unheard of. It had proven useful there, but also in a variety of other worlds, including in support of the last alliance, and undoing the damage Nagash and others had inflicted intentionally. That development in the application of alchemy had been one step to its application in repairing damage caused by Apokalyptan invasion of Earth well over a century afterwards.
Still they were talking about a river that had been the site of a rapid urbanization for nearly the last three centuries. That roughly coincided with Shaq'ran's defeat at the hands of Apophis. That one of the more potent system lords hadn't laid claim to the world was odd, but presumably Ra's enforced peace had been done with the intention of forcing the Goa'uld to not simply to pay him tribute, but also to keep them fractured. Or it was possible that the system lords had insisted on a buffer zone to keep the next war from getting out of hand too quickly.
Whatever the reasoning it didn't particularly matter now. What did matter was preventing the current crisis from getting worse. It was true that Jaffa with symbiotes would be largely fine... the problem was Moloch hadn't really had a lot of those to go around. His return to practices of female infanticide were rooted at least in the fact that he didn't have the income to secure more prim'ta. That didn't stop Jaffa from being Jaffa but it made them largely as vulnerable to humans to common diseases like the storm of cholera and typhus currently rampaging through the city.
A jaffa even one with a symbiote could still be sickened by unclean water, it was just that their symbiote tended to be able to deal with that in most cases. Humans, and Jaffa without symbiotes were about equally likely to die from tainted water supplies as one another. It was one of the things he was going to have to deal with, and that was why he had a genetics lab. Not here obviously.
There were public worlds, like this one would be, and a handful of face worlds with greater orientation towards trade, but some worlds would need to be sequestered. The New standards, and the alkesh were incorporating things he had learned from that head grabbing thing, and the Asgard database, but they were still based on goa'uld technological base. Improved, but with room for improvement further.
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Ishtar knew that this world had been selected from a short list of potentials because it met most of if not all the criteria necessary. Most importantly it had the mineral resources and the population base to support the labor of shipyards.
If you had all of the resources on hand you could construct a Ha'tak in roughly a moon's turn. More practically though the process of constructing a Ha'tak required such a wealth of materials, and magic the fastest she had ever heard someone not commanding the massive shipyards at Soma-kesh was about three months. Moloch had never been able to construct a new Ha'tak in anywhere under a year. That of course had been in the face of often chronic shortages of Naquadah. The army had always been the first priority for trading with other goa'uld to purchase weapons, and of course no queen had ever been willing to abide Moloch so goa'uld larvae had always been exceedingly precious.
The latter wasn't something that had been addressed yet but the appearance of the Chosen of Zeus had dramatically resulted in decline of disease among Jaffa who had not been blessed to receive a larval goa'uld. It had also marked a similar decline among humans as well. That had been until she had gotten here, and had to contend with the massive waste polluting the water. The doctors were doing their best to treat the problem, but there hadn't been any other option but to turn towards the gods for relief.
There was a flash of white light and the river glowed. The Dragon had only clapped his hands and touched the river bank. It held that way for a few seconds, just long enough for her to turn her head enough to see that it stretched as far as she could see. It probably stretched the entirety of the river from its source to where it finally reached the sea. He snapped his glowing eyes towards one of the Chosen, "Make sure to show them how to build secondary and tertiary canals, and to dredge them."
Ishtar didn't understand the part about the canals, but then so much construction had been underway she had been unable to keep up with it all. She did suppose it was good that this was a product of waste and stupidity and not the malice of say perhaps the deposed System Lord Nirrti, or another goa'uld. The threat of a goa'uld incursion to this world though was limited largely to the prospect of a gate bound attack. High overhead were a small detachment of Ha'tak. Though it had taken over a year the slow progress of cataloging the realm had begun to morph into the herculean task of organizing new provinces. Given the efforts being expended here in time, and manpower this would likely be the capital of a new province. The fleet above certainly had suggested that before they had summoned the lord of the underworld.
The journey back to the upper reaches of the city was accomplished by hovering skiffs flanked by a small procession of mounted humans and jaffa. Ishtar was somewhat glad that they were on the low flying barges rather than a horse. The priestess wasn't precisely an adept rider, and more than anything hoped to avoid making a fool out of herself.
Some goa'uld, including perhaps whichever god had seed humans on Simarka, liked the idea of mounted warriors, but Moloch had not been among their number. The floating platforms that had been brought with them, and that they now road, though were gate traversable, and could be mounted with a variety of weapons, and were very likely being proliferated for the inevitable conflict against Apophis. There were any number of reasons why they would pursue a battle with the serpent god, but the most easily citable was that Apophis had lost significant standing in the years sense the doom of Ra. It should have been unthinkable with Moloch's domain as a base, but so much of Apophis's domain had been scoured by fighting, most recently against Heru'ur but then also by Sokarbefore. Apophis was no longer as mighty or seemingly unconquerable as he had been even a decade ago.
She looked down into what had been muddy brown before and now the water was clear enough to see fish swimming, and even the bottom in some places. It had gone from an ugly tepid color to a nearly cerulean blue.
"This will greatly simplify preventing any further outbreaks," The 'Chosen' remarked bowing slightly.
Ordinarily humans, even human priests, were not nearly this forthcoming. The closest she could think of the Chosen's brazen behavior was that of the human worshippers of the Asgard. In a particularly embarrassing instance two decades earlier Moloch had attacked a protected planet of the Asgard only for Tyr's berserkers to drive off the attacking jaffa in a nearly suicidal frenzy. They had demonstrated complete lack of fear in death, and Moloch had been forced to concede when the Asgard Ullfrikr had arrived with his warship. She had heard similar stories from other jaffa who had had come into contact with other Asgard protected worlds. It was the impression at least that the Asgard preferred the humans under their protection to speak frankly. "Will not the city simply continue to dump the waste into the river so that it will be carried down stream?" She asked the human.
"Yes, for the most part. The new canals will let us set up filters of sand and other materials to filter out and help us keep the river clean. That will insure disease be much less common." The Greek remarked. "It is a practice that Father Zeus insisted upon soon after his return nearly five centuries ago. It greatly prevents the spread of cholera and typhus in particular." She had seen what those diseases could do... especially given the lengths her heretical sisterhood had went to preserve the lives of infant female jaffa born into Moloch's realm. The problem now was not secreting the infants away, but what to do now that Moloch had been deposed. Protect them obviously. It had been the work of more than a quarter of century. Moloch's doom had in turn meant having to safeguard the Hak'tyl communities from rivals seeking to test the realms borders, but it also had meant facing the massive reshaping of her world into its new vibrant form. Heedless though of these concerns the human continued. "Also since the canals will train into secondary canals before moving into the main waterways the city will be able to extract some of the waste and dispose of it elsewhere before it would reach the main body. This will prevent stoppages, and reduce damage to the fisheries."
Goa'uld as practice did not micromanage. Moloch had wanted to make himself the center of any gathering, or celebration, but the process of labor was not only beneath him but beneath the warriors, Jaffa or human, who constituted his armies. Moloch's domains of yesteryear seemed thin and unproductive in comparison to the new order.
The small talk about the work was largely inconsequential. She would have considered it laughable to spend any amount of time discussing plazas, and tree lined streets. She dismounted quickly as they arrived, and made her way into the great hall. The massive basilica was truly astounding in size, and currently playing host to a great number of various humans, Jaffa, Unas, and indeed other servitor races. It was also interestingly enough playing host to a few minor goa'uld underlords who had warranted the honor of an audience in the Dragon's grove rather than the outright annihilation he had inflicted to the pantheon of Moloch. Even without the crowd it would have stood out from its surroundings given the deep purple it had been painted.
Perhaps it was simply the threat of that which had cowed the underlords, or perhaps it was some other magic that bound them to their oaths. The Unas venerated Sokar in the aspect of the Dragon, celebrating an ancient victory over the evil lord of the dead. The human raised basilica though highlighted other scenes from the equally distant past.
What was interesting was how little Zeus's chosen seemed to pay to the rest of the Olympian pantheon... apparently they had decided the best insult they could make was to ignore them given their betrayal of Zeus to his father. The inhabitants of Tana were a mixed stock of people to begin with having been taken from after the fall of the stargate of Memphis. How Shaq'ran had managed to claim so many tauri from Pelop's chosen stock was lost to history. Tana's inhabitants had been able to rebuild in part thanks to those descendants who shared much of their culture with the Chosen of Zeus.
Moloch had not been able to rule over it long enough to make any real impact in disrupting the mix of Greek, and Egyptian culture. Ra had been abundantly clear that some pantheons were more equal than others in the hierarchy of the system lords. Egypt might have been first among equals, but he had never forced Cronus or Yu, or Olokun or even any of the Celtic pantheons to truly abase themselves before his chosen people The pantheon of Canaan, and Akkad, and others though had been subsumed into largely subordinate roles underneath Ra's dynastic might.
Ra's heir was now in a pitched battle against his uncle, as well as Cronus. As if Ra's doom hadn't also meant that other System Lords, and those without the rank, were clamoring for bits and pieces of the carcass of what had once been the greatest empire in the known universe. Apophis had subsumed much of what remained of the Sumerian pantheon into the ranks of his underlords.
What was perhaps most interesting of course was that their expansion was largely focused on what could actually be secured by ships. Admittedly of course the Dragon's Hatak were endowed with much greater alacrity than those of Moloch, or even other system lords. It was still strange the center piece of securing the domain was naval power rather than the stargate from a military stand point. From a civil standpoint though, as this basilica demonstrated that was where Zeus entered the picture sending his Chosen to provide the practical matter of educating human and jaffa alike. This was probably most ideal because while all of the Unas were well read... they were also the demons of the underworld and having the eaters of sin trying to educate the populace was potentially problematic. Ishtar admitted it was unnerving to see the demon Noyan participate in games of strategy.
The military aspect of such expansion meant eliminating a host of minor goa'uld who were either legally independent of the system lords, or the elimination of a host of outsiders, or other rogues who had carved out small domains beyond the de facto influence of the system lords. During the peace of Ra those domains had largely served as buffer zones keeping system lords from sharing too long of a border with one another. Those semi demilitarized zones coupled with agreements to limit the size of fleets had insured that Ra had been able to keep the other system lords in line, and thus limit the amount of bloodshed. This had been the practice for about the last nine hundred years.
To that end Ishtar was reasonably certain that the eight provinces being formed were military districts to protect the core the system lord's empire.
Tana could hardly be a local capital, never mind planetary or provincial one if there were such problems as rampant disease. At the same time though Ishtar also knew that the reason for a variety of figures was to provide military instruction to the human auxiliaries. Moloch had never had military academies to train his Jaffa. That was a distinctly Hellenic practice, and a number of the surviving warriors looked down on it... or had at least until Zeus had arrived to assist.
It was one thing to lose a match against a demon. Such a trouncing at the hands of an unas was entirely understandable to a jaffa, but losing to one of Zeus's chosen... that had been a humiliation few of the former warriors of Moloch had wished to chance again.
The muscular olive skinned human nodded, "We've begun the process of clearing ground for the academy, but the doctors of medicine," as well as their staff and students, "are for now still working out of the garrison. It was far enough upstream that we didn't realize the extent of the water. Most of that portion of the city have access to springs, and wells."
Ishtar had surveyed the garrison earlier in the year. Shaq'ran had probably had it constructed to watch the mines rather than the city. The mines were significantly more productive now, but also had apparently increased the volume of waste material as well.
One of his companions saw fit to argue the point, "Slurry was already being dumped into the river, the expansion of the mines certainly didn't help, but outbreaks of cholera have been off and on for several decades, and that's been ascertained just from interviewing residents of the town."
There was some clamoring among different parties of the Chosen of Zeus as they prepared to argue amongst each other over the matter. This would have been an unthinkable occurrence a year ago, but now it somewhat normal, common even. The humans would argue over the details of what had caused a particular problem that they had been sent to address. It also wasn't as if her fellow Jaffa were any less bewildered by this behavior than she had been. Especially because the Dragon, and Zeus not only allowed, but generally even encouraged it.
There were limits to this encouragement of course, and this dispute quickly reached it. "Have you surveyed the mountain for any instabilities?" It was a question asked without the hint of threat.
Ishtar had only ever seen flash floods cause what was described to those present. The notion that mining would deposit vast volumes of dirt and debris that might then cascade as an avalanche down the hills into dwellings below was not something she had considered. It was described in such detail that she didn't really need the accompanying holographic images of when it had happened on other worlds in the past to imagine it.
The moved on to other matters, and towards what the planet would be doing in service to the wider empire. "Relocating the gate to somewhere with greater access to the river, would certainly make shipping goods on and off the world easier." Naquadah mined from the mountains near Tana would feed shipyards. It was unlikely that the world would do much in the way of shipping naquadah elsewhere, but it would be serving as a central granary in the event they needed to address food domestically, or to feed armies in the field.
The holographic map of space showed the sum of the galaxy. She had heard the rumors of course. Jaffa warriors were nothing if not incessant gossips when it came to tales of battle. Some portion of Sokar's empire remained intact according to the news. A powerful Goa'uld underlord had rather than declare himself a system lord in his own right continued to fight Apophis, and Kali. That was supremely unusual. Apophis in the mean time was forced to contend with both his rival and nephew as well. She had also heard that Apophis had burned a swathe through his old domain trying to ferret out traitors and enemies from those worlds. This seemed to be a particularly bloody affair, and dangerous given he was surrounded on nearly all sides.
She had been informed of the plans for organizing the empire. The capital province, and eight others each based around a central planet. She understood the reasoning for the size of each province it was to insure that the dragon's ha'tak would be able to swiftly respond to any incursion by hostile fleets. Tana was to become the capital of the River province, the first of eight forges. Heaven and Thunder were to be the last, and most distant of the original eight forges from the capital.
That was the subject they turned to next, the plans for shipyards to construct the basis of a provincial fleet that could respond to a localized incursion. Tana, and its province was in a region of space that had once been dominated by the pantheons of the Akkadians and Sumerians. It had largely come under the sway of Ra, and while Moloch had been able to expand when Apophis had destroyed Shaq'ran many powerful other gods still ruled nearby.
She didn't pretend to understand the delineations of speed for ships, only the practical volume of time it would take for each ship class to make the journey. A few hours from Tana would allow the Ha'tak to be based here to reach even outlying provincial worlds. It also would permit Ha'tak to be mustered to move neighboring provinces to repel stronger invasions, or launch invasions. Svarog could only practically launch incursions by stargate, but Ares was close enough that newer faster Ha'tak could reach this worlds in a fortnight.
The galaxy was changing.
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Commentary: This is a relatively minor revision of this segment, because well it had already undergone revisions in the previous thread.
