Across Many Worlds... Children of the Gods [Jumpchain]

Tides Part 2​

"Michael has told me its quite large." Jennifer Clark remarked with no preamble, but they knew she meant the rock threatening to crash into the Barents sea. "What are the limitations preventing us from simply blowing it up?"

The Air Force officers glanced around, "When the goa'uld mothership capacity was first identified we worked on modifying ICBMs to act as a surface to orbital engagement missile."

"It didn't work I take it?" The representative asked as General Bauer's face flushed a bit.

"We misjudged the aliens shields," Bauer replied, "Effectively the goa'uld turned their ships shields on and rather than detonating the missiles crashed into them crumpling and igniting their fuel," He trailed off, "They didn't work, so the pentagon, exercised the decision to shelve the launch system program. The MK12A warhead was subsequently replaced with a newer design, but we don't have a launch system to employ that system." He trailed off, "I could have the files brought in, but I don't see how we could possibly ready the modifications to approximate the 'goa'uld buster' project with the materials we have on hand. Modifications to a rocket simply would take too long, even assuming we had the avionics already ready to be installed."

"How big is it?"

"In practical terms, we're looking at a dinosaur killer. Larger even than the K-T event bolide. It was, well dumb luck we really noticed it in the first place. Even accounting for the fact that the barents sea is comparatively shallow the tsunamis will be devastating... and the ash cloud will be devastating to the global eco system."

Kennedy cleared his throat, "What about the proposed request to our allies who have terraforming technology. Surely there can't be any military application to what would be glorified air filters, the Tollan would give us those? Or what about the Skull Aliens, we can send Jackson to ask them... or where is O'neill?"

Chekov put his mug of tea down, "While preparing clean up contingencies is not the worst idea, we should be focusing our primary attention on stopping the rock."

"I completely agree Colonel, I just think we should consider fall back plans. No offense to Doctor Jackson but he's an archaeologist not physicist. Sending him to talk to someone who might be able to help doesn't diminish our planning capacity in anyway."

"While foreign affairs is normally the prerogative of the executive branch, with the consent to establish treaties reserved to the senate, it may behoove us to bring in the rest of the permanent membership of the UN Security Council." Representative Clark remarked. Kennedy looked like he'd swallowed a lemon. "If we are facing a significant planetary threat, one that is imminent, they have the right to know and may be able to contribute."

"With all due respect Congresswoman," Kennedy began, "The United States and Russia represent the most advanced space capable programs on Earth, there is nothing France or England would be able to add to our existing capabilities." He shook his head.

Chekov glanced to the pentagon man, but Vidrine cleared his throat, "Kennedy's commitment to operational security is commendable, but we don't actually have to tell them about the stargate. There is a giant rock hurtling towards the planet. We have days to come up with a solution."

"Exactly, general. We have days to come up with a solution. I recommend we inform the P5."

"There will be panic in the streets congresswoman. If we solve it, no one will even need to know until the details are declassified decades from now." Kennedy protested. "And if we tell them and it gets out, there is no way we'd be able to organize any kind of effective evacuation. We only even have, really the barest of predictive models of what the flooding from the waves will cause. We shouldn't unduly cause panic, especially if we-"

"Thank you Colonel Kennedy," Hammond muttered a bit quieter than his usual voice, "You've made your point, we clearly need to establish the facts and consult the experts if all we have are preliminary models."

--
"And Senator Kinsey has been told?"

"Yes General Hammond." Major Davis replied. "Colonel Chekov has been briefed by the Russian Foreign Service and they have reached a tentative agreement with state that it might be for the best to go ahead with bringing the other permanent security council members in, in at least a limited capacity."

They were supposed to avoid disclosure of the gate. The official reason was to avoid creating any false hope that assistance from any of earth's off world allies might be able to arrive soon enough to deflect, or even destroy the asteroid. In somewhat more realistic terms maintaining the secrecy of the stargate had been deemed important, simply because the program didn't seem to off an immediate viable solution to preventing the disaster... assuming that they managed to pull off preventing the impact of the asteroid it was entirely possible that business at the SGC would continue as normal.

Even assuming a development related to the stargate program did prove critical to the destruction, or deflection of the asteroid Hammond doubted that any extraterrestrial source for such a system would be disclosed. If it seemed that Bauer, and his staff at Groom Lake could get a surface to orbit launch system operational it was one of the few things that they had been authorized to consider disclosing, but only if the launch system could be readied. Bauer was still pessimistic that they had the components and the ability to modify any of their rockets to orient to attacking something approaching earth while also carrying a payload..

If France, England, or China did bring it up, they were to admit that they were exploring the possibility but to acknowledge that the technical capacity to make such modifications would involve too much time. Nothing else available at Groom Lake seemed likely to produce a result, the X 301's successor wasn't ready, and there was no assurance it could have carried a meaningful enough payload to move the asteroid far enough. It would probably be their last possible attempt at deflection... assuming that they could get the avionics package updated, and the airframe modified enough to deploy a nuclear device.

The models of the asteroid and a potential impact were still coming in, and that was limiting their planning options.

"How long do we have?"

"A little over a week sir. I can get an exact time."

"No, major, until the delegates arrive."

"They're being contacted, a meeting here," at the pentagon. "Is scheduled for after lunch assuming the ambassadors all agree to reschedule their other commitments."
--
Oskyld focused on the two point two kilometer hull's disc like shape. The Harvest had been the last of a series of prototype hulls laid down before Apophis had brought the war over their borders, and its completion was relatively recent. Harvest's sister ship Guardian had been cancelled before her hull could begin to take shape in favor of constructing smaller, relatively speaking, fleet support vessels of the class that he had dispatched with Ishtar during the diplomatic overtures last year.

Harvest had both been available, and because it had been built with a sufficiently complex sensor package that he could sweep much of the rim ward expanse from Earth, to see if anything else might be out there. Well, that and the Harvest was capable of deploying unmanned, cloaked sensor platforms that would insure they had more of a warning next time.

He had no direct view of the hyperspace corridor that that ship was travelling through, and unlike a smaller ship the Harvet was large enough that even at this speed he couldn't feel the vibrations of faster than light travel. Anubis had particularly tweaked everyone's nose at this.

The asteroid had been deposited out of hyperspace and then accelerated on an impact course, either of which would have been immediately detectable by anyone watching the outer solar system. The other, the more damning factor, was the asteroid's material composition. It would be large enough, massive enough, that the small moon sized rock would start causing gravitational disturbances if something wasn't done and quickly.

The naquadah composition was why he had elected to bring Harvest as opposed to an I-Class and simply blast the rock into manageable chunks. No, given its composition, at the very least he was going to need to decelerate the rock with tractor beams, and put it under tow. He didn't trust simply slingshotting the rock back out of the solar system in case Anubis decided to just throw it back into Sol...

--
Commentary: We are approaching the end of February, I would just like to reiterate that this story takes place in the later half of '02, and notably by this point the US was already (in conjunction with the UK) decided to begin final preparations to invade Iraq, this decision was probably made in 01 as Bush entered on the recommendations of the foreign policy staff citing the perceived failures of the outgoing clinton administration to this would eventually be delayed due to the events of 9-11, but we do know from latter stargate canon (specifically Atlantis) that the US did invade Iraq in 03, but like much of 9-11 this makes very little appearance in SG1.

We are moving to disclosure, in incremental steps over a time frame of the next several months... in universe time. This has been written out, and was present in the outline put down way back in 2017. But yes, anyway, Fail Safe has problems with its writing, notably one has to rationalize why the 'goa'uld busters' don't show up, and the easiest explanation for why there aren't any more missiles that can be launched from earth to attack star ships is that Area 51 scrapped the program after the failure in the season 1 finale.

 

Tides Part 3​

If Hammond were being honest, Chekov's presence was painfully conspicuous in place of the Russian Ambassador, or at least the absence of. "Gentlemen, we've asked you here to contend with an unparalleled threat," Hammond resisted the urge to grimace at Colonel Kennedy's choice of words, "To the planet."

They were gathered in one of the Pentagon's briefing rooms deep within the inner ring. This was extremely unusual especially after the attacks of September the eleventh, but even before the planes, it had been unusual to invite foreign ambassadors into the heart of the department of defense... but then these were extraordinary times.

Kennedy continued to dance around the meet and greet, before finally, "Recently we were made aware of a particular danger, what has been termed a dino killer,"

"Excuse me?"

"I don't understand."

Hammond reached over to nudge Chekov. "Da." The colonel obediently stood up, "Its is very large asteroid, a rogue from out of the solar system at an oblique angle, we have confirmed its trajectory with deep space telemetry." He stated, "The United States, and Russia have special space program, you could say that this goes back to great patriotic war," Kennedy shot the Russian colonel a dirty look, "What we are gathered here to discuss is if there might be collective efforts that might be rendered, if there might be some pooling that we have overlooked."

A series of packets were handed out by Kennedy's increasingly sheepish looking assistant. They couldn't even be properly considered briefing packets. Ordinarily the information to be supplied ... would have been more. These were little better than a brief timeline of when the asteroid had been spotted, estimations on where it would land, and with how much force... and a picture of the rock hurtling towards the planet.

"We can bring up a feed from orbital telemetry," Kennedy added. It didn't help. Most of the subsequent questions... once they were assured that this wasn't some elaborate joke being made at their expense... were aimed at having to explain that survival was far from assured. It was hard to explain, and be understood that they were looking at an extinction level threat.

Dino Killer hadn't been blunt enough, even though when Kennedy had stated it Hammond had thought it originally a mistake... now it was apparent that it hadn't been blunt enough. "While the United States has sufficiently advanced, enhanced fusion atomic weaponry," Chekov declared waving his hand, "That is sufficient yield to deflect the asteroid in simulation, we have no method dedicated to delivering it."

Kennedy cleared his throat, "There are proposals, and efforts to retrofit an ICBM to destroy a space born target, but while those are underway, we may not have time."

They had already been here the better part of an hour, "I see." The British Ambassador remarked. "So the plan is to apprise us that the United States is going to launch an ICBM, and that there will be a nuclear detonation in space. That its not a test, that's why you've informed Russia."

Chekov prepared to interject.

"I'm sorry Ambassador, its not that simple." Hammond said standing, "My name is General George Hammond, I command an annex to NORAD out of Cheyenne Mountain." He twanged, "To which Colonel Chekov has been permanently attached to. In an ideal situation the launch of such a modified launch system equipped with a nuclear warhead... what we are addressing is not that such a program is in place, is that we may not have sufficient time to make those modifications. We are, we are reaching out to examine alternatives..." He gave a heavy sigh, "We are fishing for ideas and proposals, gentlemen."

Perhaps the only positive thing was that with only three ambassadors the pandemonium was not so bad as if they'd had ambassadors from all the Nato member states... even if George Hammond wasn't entirely sure that they processed exactly how damaging the asteroid would be.


Two hours later, "They have informed their governments, and now the dithering has begun." Chekov stated. "We are wasting time."

He was probably right. The president had already ordered him to begin transferring personnel offworld. Major Carter's hail mary of idea of trying to boost a tollan phase shift generator not only had energy issues, it like the plan to use a nuke lacked a delivery mechanism. "I know that colonel..." And then there was Senator Kinsey's absence from the meeting to contend with as well.

--
The hologram flickered. "Your explanation is satisfactory." The gray bobble head declared. The asgard on the other end lacked the much more clearly defined musculature of Zeus's true form, wasn't quite as tall either, "Your hyperspace logs clearly show that the asteroid is not originally from the solar system nor was its path accidental."

An Asgard ship would have been faster than Harvest, but he had reason to expect that none were available.... and it hadn't been assured that his protest of Anubis's action necessarily would have been acted upon in any haste. He exhaled noisily, "I am acting in accordance to the terms of the Treaty. This action was undertaken by a rogue party, and directly imperiled the planet deliberately. Anubis's actions while clever show remarkable contempt for the systems and agreements, an Asgard response would be, desirable."

"While that may be your personal opinion, breaches and evaluations of the treaty require a commission of an equal number of system lords and archons. Representation from both signatories, and testimony will take time."

Oskyld regarded his long range sensors. Nothing. There had been no movement from Adara, which suggested that there might not currently be an asgard presence there. "You have my official accounting, I will be in touch." He terminated the line's connection. He'd be in contact... but not through official channels... there were other Asgard who might be able to shape policy and there was of course the matter of the Asgard's deterioration that would need to be addressed. The Asgard envoy to the System Lords, and treaty representative had been guarded which made sense but the lack of response only underscored the resources they had invested, tied up in facing other threats closer to home... which was a whole other headache.

The cellular degeneration and failings of the cloning process would ultimately require a complete rebuilding of the genome and a better cloning protocol and ... most likely some of the degradation was as he suspected a combination of epigenetic factors. Thor's five hundred year old body showed too many ecological imprints for lack of a better description to be sure which ones had contributed most to his healthier physical form. There were obviously short term patches that could be applied but in the long term it was a project of significant investment... and one the Asgard were unlikely to trust a reigning system lord without good reason.

They might verify the data though supported by other channels.

A problem for another day though. Harvest didn't lurch as it made the transition from hyperspace. Its engines and internal integrity fields, gravitic systems much too advanced for that. The capital ship might have lacked the gun density of an I-class but it hadn't been designed as a general fleet combatant. The Improved Ha'tak were intended to be demonstrably Ha'tak, with an emphasis on securing space, and commanding ha'tak. Harvest was intended as command and control, and to on load offload supplies, as well as to refit and repair capital ships in potentially hostile space. More specialized than any goa'uld vessel... and someone would have noticed that sooner or later.

Harvest's hull a white and ochre accent stood out against the backdrop of space as it exited above the gas giant Jupiter, which loomed large in the holographic projection of the ship's short range sensors as they refreshed to scan without having to fight through the background radiation of hyperspace, or the 'noise' generated by the ship's own Faster than Light drives. With no discernable threats located the short range systems began an indepth dissection of the surrounding solar system, and then out to a few light years. No threats appeared within that bubble, and while not discernable by tangible feeling the ship moved to get under way by sublight systems.

The asteroid was comparatively 'warm' against the backdrop as it tumbled through the void towards the little blue marble that was earth. It would take less than an hour to reach the earth, and then the vessel could slow, and redirect the rock in a controlled manner... though he planned to make sure it had no fail safes in it first to cause it to detonate. He doubted it though... and even if it did... well there was a contingency for that... or the humans nuking it like was an action movie. He wondered if Anubis had somehow managed to see Armageddon and it had given him the idea. It was a tad absurd, but the naquadah composition was too obvious.
--
Notes: This is not set in stone, but the current plan is that SG1 will continue its regular update schedule through March. In April I may slot something in for that Friday slot.

 

Tides Part 4​

The feed had largely been ignored. Just sitting there recycling in the background, "Oh dear its stuck." The British ambassador remarked.

"No," Chekov remarked, indicating the counter in the screen, the Russian Colonel turned a glance to Hammond, and mouthed 'Asgard' clearly as a question.

"Someone get NASA on the horn, please." Colonel Kennedy demanded only adding please as an almost afterthought, probably at the realization that he wasn't the ranking officer in the room. "If the satellite feed is malfunctioning, it doesn't effect anything, we can get another feed from a different satellite, but we have a calculation about time till impact." He informed the ambassadors.

Minutes passed. "What's going on up there?"

"Retasking another satellite, ambassador. This will take a few minutes."

Chekov had slowly, so as to not draw attention returned to the Texan's side, "O'neill, you think?"

Hammond doubted it. Jack wouldn't necessarily have had time... even assume the Asgard had picked up on the first ring. Doctor Jackson might have been able to get someone, he'd been able to leave from Groom Lake while Jack had still been in Langley... and if they got through this they'd have questions to answer.... but they had to get through this first. Hammond settled for shaking his head and didn't say anything as Kennedy through him a side eyed look that would have been ordinarily completely unacceptable in etiquette.

"We're adjusting the telescope."

Something was wrong. They had planned for this in order... well after Apophis's ha'tak had been destroyed based off of theoretical plans on what to do if such an attack was mounted. The satellites for monitoring for spacecraft should have already been on alert to replace the first in the event of any kind of technical malfunction. With the previous feed data, and the size of the object, massive in comparison to even a goa'uld mothership, it should have been no trouble at all to order a retasking, and pipe the new feed in.
--
If Goa'uld could have actually arsed themselves with the bother of setting up more complex mining systems ... not even fully automated ones, but any sort of asteroid mining this would have been a prime target for such exploitation. By and large though the goa'uld didn't. Part of that was that, while territorial increases by the goa'uld had increased markedly, significantly so since the settlement of humans over the last roughly ten thousand years by Ra he had also intentional suppressed technological development. The most advanced mining and industrial systems in the galaxy were relics of Alteran origin that were largely automated. Effectively safe black boxed systems that Ra didn't have to worry about someone copying to make more of...

Thus everyone could play their games of civilization on a galactic scale, and that had been the galaxy up until about a decade ago... when Ra had caught a terminal case of pocket sunshine to the face. Oskyld's decision to not rely on mining drones was that he didn't have the technical support base for any established institution to maintain those systems. That wasn't to say he wouldn't use them, or that he didn't plan for them, but he wasn't going to make the hard shift towards those to avoid being put in the position of having to contend with the bulk of his neighbors deciding to object with their fleets.

The modified symbiotes would help... and better than that once fully mature it was unlikely any outsiders would, including the normal goa'uld, realize the situation. The gate keepers would be able to organize, catalog and pursue long term projects long after Oskyld departed this universe. The goa'uld were basically biological computers, if not necessarily in raw processing power than in terms of indexing and cataloging data. The biological enhancements they could supply to either jaffa, or as mature symbiotes, to their hosts was another factor. The goa'uld were, basically ideal as a client race to manage long term projects, and oversee things... it was just apparently without ... well the normal meglomania was a problem.

All, matters for the future. The stps to uplift civilization would require managers and needed to be done incrementally. There were certain points where development plateaued if certain conditions weren't met. Usually it was material, the malthusian trap had to be circumvented by technological developments. Field rotation, cover crops, horse collars, fertilizers, and eventually mechanization. It was really the last one that was the issue for introduction. Mechanization required industrialization and would draw the wrong sort of attention. It would simply be significantly more obvious than... well steam engines turning pumps inside mines for example... and those could have been largely run by humans of a medieval or early modern technical understanding so long as they could be taught until they got the hang of it.

In the long term humans in the minds would probably begin experimentation under Zeus's watchful eye, and develop the other necessities to industrial civilization... perhaps even in some cases jumping to hydroelectric power. Zeus was unlikely to allow significant fossil fuel development, barring the necessity to using coke for steel manufacture... which would still likely result in locationally centralized industry until naquadah based electric 'motors' could be used, and that would in theory lead to the development of other technologies... but that would be long in the future.

Long after he departed... and for now there was more pressing matters. The humans would not be along after all. "Momentum of object dispelled." The Prelate announced. The asteroid had been accelerated on a trajectory so that it would hit the earth. If they let it go now it would probably still fall into the earth's gravity well, but the longer they held it the less likely... but it still might due its own mass and the sun's either fall towards the sun or become captive in an orbit of its own depending on other factors.

Simply put they could have left it at this... save for the fact that his sensors had already confirmed the humans... the earth... the USAF apparently considered nuking the asteroid the best thing and were trying to make an ICBM convertible to hitting something coming in from out system. He'd known that already which was why they weren't stopping here, but it was nice to watch their progress... but it did complicate things. It would have been so much easier if they had gotten here soon enough that they could have disappeared the rock before the earth had noticed it.

One of the countless little knick knack satellites was already turning towards where the rock was, and while it was unlikely to have a picture of Harvest... it wouldn't take all that long to realize that the rock wasn't behaving in accordance with previous observations and basic physics. They had stopped the bolide and were now holding it in place.

--
"Its just frozen, are we sure the camera isn't broken."

"No you can see the background changes." The British Ambassador remarked. The lights flickered across the Pentagon, but noticeable particularly in the meeting room, "What if its on our end, whats the word, buffering, the tubes might be clogged or something."

The light flickering shifted becoming noticeable as it attenuated in the center of the room into what Hammond recognized as the beginning of a holographic projection. Too tall to be an Asgard. Dark red, and black solidified into eight foot of solidified light.

"Greetings Hammond of Texas." The Raptor Prelate spread taloned hands as the image completed, "I come to bear the word of the Eldest Lord of Interminable Darkness, it is in fealty to the Dragon of the Lands Beyond Shadow a vessel of the fleet has arrived and has, pursuant to the protected planets treaty intercepted a large extra solar object that would have impacted one of your northern seas."
That did confirm why the large rock was now visibly stopped on not one, but two feeds from orbit.

Described by Major Carter reading from Nasa's estimated report the asteroid was a hundred plus kilometers long, something like eighty five miles, and the twin feeds as they adjusted showed the bolide's massive difference compared to the broad white and red shape of the curvature of the mothership's hull as it began to peak from the shadow of the massive rock.

 

Tides Part 5
Conclusion.​

Jack was off world. Daniel Jackson was off world. It made sense. That ... well he could understand why without Colonel O'neill it moved to him... especially if they had a ship in orbit... or near enough. There would have been... well not no consequences, but few serious ones to a holographic information at Cheyenne mountain, or even at Groom Lake. Oh base security wouldn't be happy either at the SGC or Area 51, but there wasn't really anything that could have been done... here at the pentagon... well the issue wasn't really the pentagon per se so much as the meeting in progress. "Thank you prelate." He replied weakly. They had the attention of the room including the ambassadors of the three other major nuclear states who comprised the UN Permanent Security Council membership

... and there was the probability that if their satellites had a vantage point to watch the mothership others might well have noticed... even no other satellites had been retasked every moment the asteroid was up there was a chance that someone groundside would see it with a telescope not unlike the one Colonel O'neill had on his roof.

They hadn't seriously considered this scenario. There were no plans or frameworks for this scenario. The Asgard had demonstrated little to no interest in Earth political nuance. The likelihood of a goa'uld vessel showing up in orbit had always been assumed as to be a prelude to invasion.

The raptor exhaled and nodded with great solemnity, "The asteroid will be transported away from your solar system, and official reckonings presented to all appropriate authorities in accordance with the Treaty."

Treaty was the magical word that brought the attention of the ambassador from Great Britain. The French Ambassador, and the Chinese Ambassador also understood, but the englishman was moving on the matter, "A treaty?"

"A certain number of worlds have for various reasons been set aside and placed under the protected planets treaty. The Asgard's planetary representative is absent, but the Dragon has already spoken with the member for treaty arbitration at large."

It was a legalese response.... and Colonel Kennedy was likely already weighing the likelihood that they might be able to get through this with just aliens are real, and that they'd known about it. That aliens were a known factor, would also explain a Russian Liaison at NORAD. They had been directed that disclosure of the stargate should only be done if it was deemed necessary, that exact discretionary disclosure had been left ambiguous as how and who should make the call of what was necessary.

It was probably an intentional pitfall to foist blame if something went wrong, cynical as that consideration was. The NID was opposed to a number of proposals that might be perceived as compromising the US national security position... whatever they were quantifying that as at any given time.

"The Asgard," Chekov straightened, 'They have been contacted, will we see some form of response or will just let the matter be?"

"The Asgard envoy has referred matters to higher counsel, I suspect that the final decision will be to convene an investigative body in several months of an equal number of representatives aimed at establishing some process to prevent such a problem in the future."

"I see." Chekov replied, "Yes, that makes sense."

The alien had the attention of the room, almost, but not quite to the exclusion, of the spaceship in the feed from orbit. The Ambassadors had already apprised their governments several hours earlier about the asteroid... and in turn presumably the the dispersion of that information had begun to trickle down to the strategic services, to space and missile forces, and civilian scientific apparatus in order to look for an answer.

"Excuse me," The Chinese ambassador was eyeing Chekov, "I do not wish to misunderstand, but the implication which I take from this is that, bluntly that the United States, and the Russian Federation have been aware of Alien Intelligences for I assume some time now."

Kennedy cleared his throat, "That's-"

"We were informed, yes. In 1999 the Treaty was amended to allow earth to be added. As the name implies it protects the planet." Chekov shrugged trying to play it cool.

The prelate nodded, "Indeed."

"And this inquiry, to prevent this from happening again?" Hammond pressed glancing to the ambassador, all too aware that sooner or later this was going to trip, and spill over into the nature of the galaxy at large... he was surprised that the mention of the Asgard hadn't lit any light bulbs.

"The object in question, extra solar in origin was cast by Anubis, in violation of the treaty. Its mineral composition, and content are evidence enough of foul play, though that by itself would not be enough to ascertain guilt. However, the Dragon maintains sufficient vigil over the treaty worlds to detect hyperspace travel in their proximity." There was another ripple of light, and the hologram of the raptor was joined with a projection of the milky way, Pinpricks of light from uncountable numbers of stars dimmed as the planets of the protected planets treaty were highlighted against the backdrop of territories ruled by individual system lords.

The ambassadors had no frame of reference for the size... the distances involved. One of the first programs the stargate had stood up for permanent off world installations had been looking for worlds in proximity to earth to detect ships approaching the planet by hyperspace. Those plans of course had been scrapped at the realization of the complexity involved, but this underscored the significant FtL velocity of a modern capital ship.
--
Oskyld smiled and rested his chin on his knuckles, and then with his other hand waved the report away. He wasn't surprised that the Air Force had not disclosed the existence of aliens, even just denying Roswell, and the Asgard crash there had become so institutional... and of course they could hardly admit the reason for the disappearance for the majority of the scout ship crash had been that they didn't know what had happened to it. The Asgard had collected much of the debris, it wasn't unlikely that they had missed some, but a transporter sweep tended to be very effective, but the humans of the time likely had no frame of reference... and he doubted the modern Air Force had given it real further consideration even after dialogue with the asgard.

The Russian knowledge of the Stargate, and of the goa'uld was interesting. The goa'uld wouldn't care about the nuance of a multi polar planetary nation state affair. The protected planets treaty didn't care who, how or what administered the ground side matter. Earth's lack of single planetary government was irrelevant... unless someone attempted to bypass the treaty by playing one against the other.



"Direct the humans I will station a handful of defensive platforms here as an interim solution," Which would be a trivial expense compared to the naquadah he'd be able to recoup from the bolide... and those same stations would give him a much more clear picture of Earth's political developments as it played out.

"And Hammond's petition?"

"that will have to await a board of inquiry." He replied. Nirti a fugitive, Cronus involved in a war... Yu Huang Shang Ti was the only system lord of the previous comittee to available. Olokun and Ishkur were both possibilities to sit on any committee. No, the bigger concern would be seeing who among the Asgard would join Thor, assuming that Heimdall and Freyr didn't simply cede their votes as they had done last time. Oskyld paused and gold eyes glittered, "Tell the assembled humans that I will insure that the matter will be addressed on the solstice," The longest night of the year, he was tempted not to send a magic bauble to hold that, but decided his word would be sufficient.

"And the rogue's attack?"

"There is nothing the Tauri can do to meaningfully impede Anubis, we will deal with him in time. They embarrass him most by living well."

The prelate bowed, "It shall be done," and returned to the orrery to relay the word.

The ambassadors of the three other nations hadn't yet been able to inform their host countries, but tracking suggested the French space agency had turned one of their telescopes to look towards objects closer than it was normally looking at. He hadn't identified any obvious British signs, but by this point the chance of ground observation of Harvest was over and estimated fifty percent, and presumably some ground observatory had observed the asteroid, if not the spaceship.

Oskyld rose, "If you're quite finished eavesdropping..."

The beach bum stepped out of the recesses of the archway, "Do you intend to stop Anubis?"

"I am not his mother," he replied turning luminescent eyes towards the sandy blond brown haired man, "And I have no intention allowing his medaling in my own projects."

"The goa'uld have failed to demonstrate an ability to replicate the technology with them, at least not effectively. You're changing that."

"Information is not knowledge. Just because you know something doesn't make you intelligent. I appreciate Ptah actually works to understand what he knows, and can only hope enough of the maturing ones will follow that course."

"They're directing hundreds millions of worshippers your way certainly doesn't hurt."

"It doesn't hurt, but I don't require it either." Oskyld replied, "Why are you here?"

"There are people on this planet that are important to me." ... ah the Asgard might not have been in a position to do anything, but apparently not everyone had been keen to let it just lie. "I wanted to say, thank you."

"It is nothing. I have made an agreement. The Asgard's inability to act does not change that the bargain was made. Will you visit your human friends and tell them?" The other man was gone, as the archon's hologram appeared, "Ulfrikr have you had time to review my proposal?"

The asgard nodded. "The council is unlikely to support cybernetic modification without extensive study before hand." a pity, "But the biological studies, and gene sequencing does I admit seem promising."

--
Notes: And in the next chapter we get the revelation from Sam going confirming Oskyld is not Sokar, with this confirmation that the shipbuilding machinery is gate builder in tech base, very recently built gate builder machinery.

 

Saqqara​

They were gambling a lot by coming here. Only a sense of desperation from high command made this sort of expedition even remotely plausible... or the NID were trying to get them killed, or captured on a fool's errand. Saqqara was a temperate world at least in comparison to Abydos. Daniel had made the comparison of being more like the Mediterranean basin climes of Egypt on earth compared to Red Egypt's desert climate when asked about the wide grassy plains.

It was exactly like Egypt... if the ancient city of Alexandria had had a pyramid the size of the chrysler building dominating its skyline. As a planet the goa'uld had left it off the normal stargate cartouches because of its unique nature. The Serekh had been centerpiece of Apep's throne world, a place for him to mediate the disputes of the system lords long before Hasara station had existed. Its great pyramid was considered neutral, even sacred ground to at the very least the children of Ra, and the wider Egptian pantheon.

Jack lowered his field glasses, "Something wrong Major?" He asked.

"I'm afraid it looks like Selmak was right." She replied. "These readings suggest that those," She waved the hand held machine in the direction he'd been looking, and where naquadah and trinium were being funneled. "Are Gate Builder machinery... and it gets worse."

"Worse, I don't like worse Carter." He muttered.

"I'd bet a month's pay sir that those are newly built machines."

Jack lifted the glasses again to look at the long sloped shaped of one of the 'factories?' "You're sure?" He asked.

"As sure as I can be given where we're standing," She paused, "I mean it makes sense, you saw the fleet in orbit last night." Even in the middle of the day there were vibrant pinpricks of light from dozens of ships high above the Serekh pyramid. Those that were visible in the daylight were only a fraction of what you could see with a telescope at night.

A far cry from how Apophis had treated the world during his brief overlordship of the planet, and even during Ra's time though for very different reasons. Saqqara was the, was very clearly living up to its designation as a provincial capital. "Teal'c."

"Master Bra'tac once visited this world centuries ago as first prime to Apophis, when Ra still ruled. He said the Library of Apep disables all weapons within its boundaries."

"Are you thinking-"

"The Tollan seem to use an Alteran tech base... their particle weapons are definitely similar to the goa'uld but diverged significantly compared to what we're used to seeing." Most goa'uld regarded gun powder weapons as crude and primitive, lacking in elegance even but if the weapon cancellers worked like the Tollan ones... well the machines probably would still generate a field to stop them from working. The goa'uld opinion be damned.... at the same time though. "And the Raptors are still carrying weapons. If they don't work..." that assumed they didn't work... but unlike Jaffa the raptors reaction to Reetou was less crippling pain and more bloodthirsty lizard crunches on cricket.

They could go back now. Confirming Selmak's concern that the shipbuilding equipment was ancient ... and worse appeared to be of recent manufacture would be enough. "We need to at least look around the library."

"You're assuming that it is actually open to visitors." Jack pointed out to Daniel, but it was a pointless protest. They'd seen enough Jaffa come and go, and humans, the latter largely in Greco-byzantine fashions in and out that getting shouldn't have been an issue.

--
The Great Pyramid was at the heart of itself a massive Egyptian style temple complex that was clear the deep inside one went, as they moved further away from the domes of much newer Byzantine esque temples added to the outer ring of the landscape. The library eventually gave way to the a massive tomb complex, but even the library was much closer to Alteran level technology, an exorbitant expense in naquadah and other rare minerals.

The Serekh's differences though were noticeable as clearly intermediary between the usual goa'uld versions, which tended to double down with the gold inlay hieroglyphs or other ostentatious displays to impress on humans and jaffa versus the most recent machines... or for that matter the newer constructions in general.

"Shit," Jack muttered coming to a halt. Carter blinked putting one of the goa'uld tablets down. The physical resemblance was... there, in a sense. The memories of Jolinar of Malkshur remembered Sokar as a painfully fastidious tyrant, who had kept himself shaved, and wearing heavy kohl eyeliner, and an expansive set of crimson robes. All in all a goa'uld perfectly happy to spend his time, the time he wasn't directly administering his subjects, or terrifying his enemies, reading... and the resemblance in skin tone was uncanny.

... but the Dragon, and the two flanking lizards had long dark hair, and a trimmed beard that wouldn't have been inappropriate to find on a greek king.

"You're not Sokar."

"Good," He replied, "I am pleased someone can recognize that." Oskyld replied. "Do you understand the creation of the Jaffa?" He asked conversationally, as the two Slaan priests moved away towards the flanks of the reading table, "Surely it must have occurred to you to ask, about Dakara. Pelops created the jaffa as a statement of ego, as much as it turned into a valuable contribution. He couldn't create an entirely new race but he could modify humans to create Jaffa... and that heightened physical symbiosis with goa'uld larva was intended to to provide him an army. An army, the incubation process of larval symbiotes, was a happy coincidence." He raised an eyebrow, "and you came here and not the imperial center that I appropriate from Moloch," Though Saqqara would have probably been a better fit for the empire if not for fact the other provinces spread out from Moloch's former capital.

"You ordered the lizards to stop the rock." Jack remarked, a tinge of irritation and bitterness.

"Of course, there is an agreement with the Asgard. It wasn't as if Anubis was anywhere approaching subtle either, throwing a naquadah cored asteroid of that size. I suspect Desala must have taken him to see that silly Armageddon movie." He glanced towards Carter as the latter bumped into Daniel Jackson, "Oma Desala is, as far as such things go Anubis's mentor, though he is something of a disappointment. They've had a falling out over philosophy, and you've met both of them."

"I think I'd remember that," Jack commented.

Gold eyes shifted back to him, "Anubis has to play according to the others rules, the same rules his mother has to abide by. Its part of their system. There exists a certain amount of leeway for they, and your acquaintance Orlin-"

"You're the Other."

His physical form turned luminescent and expanded, not quite loosing its human shape, but the arms lengthened in a way that was no longer human norm far closer to his draconic form than to the prior. "Indeed." He replied, "The goa'uld may not normally be able to draw power from their worshippers, but Anubis is not like them. There aren't enough of them to meaningfully supplement his powers at an interstellar level, but it does make him more dangerous to you... especially since he can chose to appear how he likes on Earth." Not that he could do much on Earth, Oskyld knew that the Alteran were mindful of who did what there, and would likely intervene if the rogue goa'uld attempted to utilize any of the ancient ruins on earth through his elevated form of existence.
--
Commentary: Ok firstly note that this is in the Extras tab for a reason. I consider this to be nominally canon to the Jump, but are some minor issues with the year 2002 timeline, among other things which involve Oma, Daniel Jackson, Anubis, and for that matter Daniel dying from radiation poisoning... and then of course the launch of the Prometheus later in the year.

Prometheus supposedly had its maiden flight c. October. Also there is the whole Aiyana issue

 

Consequences.​

On the plus side a giant rock wasn't going to crash into the planet, and they weren't going to go the way of the dinosaurs. Hurray. On the other hand, with an eight foot killer lizard in the pentagon in front of a bunch of high muckity mucks from four other nuclear powers... the other four state's on the permanent security council... Jack had a really hard time taking comfort in their not impending doom.

Chekov grimaced putting the pentagon's attempt at tea aside, there was a reason Jack had taken coffee at least that they could manage to make drinkable. "This is not good."

"Ya think?" He grunted back to the paunchier Russian colonel. The Frog, and the Chinese Ambassador were both looking especially surly. It was harder to read mr stiff upper lip, the right honorable lord needham or whatever the man's title was. It didn't help the spook attache over from Langley was hovering in his six, and had told him not to underestimate the Brit just because they were allies... ugh the company's paranoia probably wasn't wrong... but for the wrong reasons. "We just had a freaking murder lizard tell everyone they were going to be installing big honking space guns in our solar system."

"Da." Chekov agreed, "I do not like it."

The prospect of the orbital defense cannons were probably supposed to be reassuring, except Jack was ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine... percent sure that if they could shoot at space ships they could probably shoot at ground targets... and if they could shoot goa'uld motherships down they were going to make russian nukes look like pop guns. Of course Chekov didn't like it. Chekov at least had a frame of reference for what capital ships fired at one another as standard ordinance.

Chekov commented that it was going to likely get worse.

"Of course its going to get worse, can you imagine what kind of shitshow this is going to turn into when Yu gets here." The Chinese system lord probably hadn't even been who Chekov had been thinking about, but he nodded anyway. Since he wasn't nominally engaged in hostilities at the moment he was the most likely chair of the system lords investigative delegation.... but they had time... hopefully a lot of time... as far as Jack was concerned the longer it took the snakes to decide they wanted to the better of they'd be, because it'd be time Cart would have to figure some techno babble solution to Earth's problems. Whether that was reasonable, or even feasible ... well that was a different story, "No, its going to be a mess..."

"Yes, I am sure having some ancient Chinese emperor show up to tell us we are bunch of ill-mannered children will be especially enjoyable." Chekov continued to be agreeable... "But I am also concerned ... about certain other matters. Has doctor Jackson had time to review Brtisky's ... ah more controversial positions."

Jack thought about it, "He said about chariots and some archaeological finds in the step," There had been a lot of blathering on about poetry from India and Iran... he'd only really paid attention because Danny had said India and he'd been mulling over how much he wanted to throttle that bitch Nirti but nothing really leapt to mind. "No he said something about the winter solstice," Which the lizard had said something about that was probably when they'd hear back.

Chekov mulled over his response, "It is not what I meant, but the reason we have allowed Britsky's work to be more widely published is there is some controversy over some of his conclusions, it was best to hold back on some of the findings of even more mundane things, because .... well they might be offensive."

"Daniel get over here." Jack whispered waving him over discretely as he could in this mess.

"Oh, i was just going to talk to the ambassador," The british ambassador looked to be a little busy with Jenny so he could wait, "What is it?"

"What's this stuff about Britsky?"

"I'm not through all of his stuff, he was a pretty prolific writer, and he was in the process of cataloging a large volume of archaeological digsites in Russia, and the wider pontic caspian steppe for the museum in moscow." Daniel chattered down for a while...

... apparently Aryan was the ancient Finnish world for southerner ... or some shit... probably didn't mean southerner but had entered ancient finn folk speak because they'd been neighbors, and then the aryans had migrated south east where they'd invented the chariots, that Daniel had mentioned earlier which was controversial because originally people had though the chariot had been invented further south or whatever... Jack didn't care especially since he didn't ' seem to involve snakes so not national security issue...

"Right models of carts, but not chariots, ok can we move it along."

Daniel grumbled a little bit, "The ancients and the Asgard both speak what we would recognize as a Indo European language... and Britsky is probably right that Nox, seem to speak some kind of relative to Finno Ugric... well we think... it has a lot of Ancient and Asgard loan words... so we're not sure... but the ... Britsky thinks that the Furlings... and their client races spoke an Afro Asiatic language, i told you about the Akkadian thing and the Oanes you remember Nem?"

The blue freaky fish guy who had kidnapped Daniel and mind whammied the rest of SG 1 to think he was dead... yeah...

Daniel hastily moved on, and glanced at Chekov... "So the thinking is that we think that sometime in pre antiquity there must have been some contact between humans and the ancients, and probably the Asgard, Furling, and Nox... Britsky seems to have taken the position that there were certain... that ancients maybe interbred with humans to create a more advanced race of humans."

"Occult nonsense." Chekov grumbled. "He was supposed to be see if any of the archaeological finds contained anything dangerous."

... or that Russia could use to try and keep pace with America, Jack suspected, but he didn't say that, "Well yes, we're sure there was some degree of cross pollenization, and we do have questions about some of the Goa'uld... and where they fit into this... the language families seem to share traits but there was no ancient aryan society on earth like what the Nazis thought," or had wanted to be the case, "more likely ancient humans were observing and imitating things they saw with the tools they had available, and this created a technological diffusion across horizon effects. The chariots, diffusing into the south, and across the steppe, metal working of tools, swords for some reasons, because they're more a prestige object than a practical weapon compared to the utility of spears in massed ranks." Danny frowned, "Still suffice to say from what we know, and what Doctor Brtisky hypothesized if this reached general publication it would alarming to the archaeological community and would probably be assumed, or taken to validate even more outlandish ideas like crazy people like Daniken."

"Danny the archaeological community thinks you and nick are both crazy people." He pointed out. "And you also have that expression you make when..."

Jackson crossed his arms, and then huffed, "This is going to be controversial, but I suspect that the Aryans might have taken their names from that ancients... and that Atlantis was a spaceship, that at some point moved off earth."

"Oh boy here we go, alright shoot."

"Ten thousand years ago we think the Ancients came back to earth, we now know that from other sites, including Altair, but also from data on earth, Britsky's research suggests that the may have been, there may have been contact periodically. What he didn't have access to was our copies of Goa'uld ancient history, where the ancients disappeared," as they periodically seemed to do, "A civil war started among the goa'uld, culminating in Ra finding earth. Its why the goa'uld have no problem understanding earth languages any linguistic drift they can easily accommodate for, given their grasp on languages in general... you just tell them what a new word means,"

"And it goes in the old genetic memory, yeah, I know how snake memory works." He grunted glancing at the projection of the orbital feeds where the atypically shaped Goa'uld capital ship was still standing still in the middle of their solar system.
--
Notes: Stargate chronologically takes place during an important period in anthropology and archaeology. With the downfall of the soviet union it was much more feasible to conduct archaeology on pontic caspian sites in the steppes after 91 (yay no longer having to deal with soviet 'socialist history' theories) but among other things, and also because dating techniques and computers continued to improve we can pretty conclusively establish that Common Indo Arayan speakers or their ancestors before the year 2000 BC invented chariots, not people in the near east as was typically held to be the case prior to this, and this was made possible because archaeologists were able to dig up buried chariots. (Lot of cultural inertia in the academic community was skeptical of these claims on frankly a lot of stupid positions). This is also supported by linguistics, and more broadly looking at the dispersion of chariots it makes more sense in terms of the spread of chariots, both into the near east, as well as their introduction to ancient China.

Concidentally the dispersion of chariots into the middle east also matches up with the early written parts (the gothas, and the family books) and compsoitions of the Avesta and Rig Veda which probably originated from Common Indo Aryan before Proto Iranian and Proto Indic split from one another.

And I'm going to continue this PIE broadly speaking split off an Anatolian branch, a Tokharian branch, Germanic... probably then Slavic, and then Hellenic's precursor, and Italic, and Celtic probably came off and split from the same branch and then diverged (celtic is fucking weird) as well. In Stargate Terms, I get to just blame the ancients and asgards for this whole headache yay!

Obviously though among other things this foreshadows Atlantis, and Anubis stuff. JumpChain, more generally, Classical Era for PJO jump will probably be updated then giving way to mostly like the first Naruto chain snippets in the general anthology thread, I will point out that I baled on Naruto while Shipuden was still ongoing, and quite frankly the 'canonical' Naruto jump (of very early jumpchain vintage) basically incorporates basically nothing of Naruto Shippuden... and I while I intend to do the Ootsuki jump thing whatever at some point it won't be covered in that jump or in the Generic Naruto Fanfiction Jump story content.

 

Consequences Part 2​

Oskyld remained in orbit for as long as he dared, which was plenty long enough to insure that scans could be run of the Earth, and the solar system... of ancient apparatus. If one wished to be honest he didn't particularly like the spread of the Ancients outposts across the earth... but he wasn't surprised either.

He had a map now.

There were a variety of sites that he doubted the humans could feasible reach... or if they hadn't already been working on the Antarctic site he'd have been skeptical they would have gone after it first... but of course they had other reasons for moving on that site first. The difficulty in accessing sites that were well beyond thousands, well into millions of years old, might still be ones the humans might ... but it wasn't really the Earth's governments that he was worried about.

Cost of excavation wasn't the sort of thing that would stop a goa'uld, in most cases, if it meant recovering Ancient trinkets never mind actual gate builder facilities. The system lords even the ones who had no interest in biological sciences would have rushed to try and lay claim to any of the equipment left behind by Nirti's patron Lilith if only they had some idea of where that machinery was. For pride and ego alone, for some one like Nirti, Olokun, Pelops, or Arawn then it was so much more than that... that machinery Thoth's possession ... such equipment was unthinkable to allow to fall into hostile position.

Which of course was the usual system lord position to their rivals possessing gate builder artifacts, if I can't have it you can't have it either was a frightfully common position for a system lord to adopt if his rivals found a shiny bauble. There was a reason Oskyld reinforced his worlds with garrison fleets and orbital defense platforms, sooner or later more grasping goa'uld would likely attempt to try his wealthier worlds just for their production of talents of Naquadah. Saqarra might be exempt by ancient tradition, but Oskyld suspected that might not hold given Apophis's increasing erratic behavior, or Anubis's blatantly outlawry.

He supposed he was going to have to say something to his nominal peers once he returned.

--
To tell the truth he had been expecting this or a more formal version of it for a while now. It was a little shocking, and not in a good way, that they had waited this long... which meant Langley was pretty sure about whatever they were going to ask. He had been called away too suddenly last time for them to really get the chance to play the usual mind games... and then everything else had happened. It was hard to know what they might have learned.

Jack looked at the CIA man across his kitchen counter. "I get it, its classified Jack." The man remarked shrugging, all reasonableness in his bearing, "I know we've got our own little fiefdoms, but you did ask me to look at that explosion, that gas leak... you know the history of the Agency," the heavily leaned into mythologized emphasis of identity that the Agency liked to throw around for times like this, "if Truman had been better prepared, and if our forbearers hadn't been caught up in so much beef with State things would have been different."

O'neill frowned but took a swig from his beer, and then nodded, "You're saying there is something about the OSS involved?"

The spook smirked, "You were always a quick one. Yeah, well I couldn't be sure, but then the Navy happened to ask some questions. Its amazing what the Agency keeps in the back rooms." Not literally in the back rooms the truth was the CIA was worse than the Smithsonian's storage system according to Daniel, or any police backlog of evidence to process. There were knick knacks micro fiche and rolls and rolls of other film and papers., "I'm not asking you to tell me everything, but you went to Egypt Jack, and while we have our share of not too bright people behind a desk we can read Radar and call up satellites from our sibling agencies pretty well." He took a pull from the long neck in his hand. "Imagine my personal surprise to find that Russian Nato cooperation extends to a NORAD annex with enough black ops veterans involved to raise some eyebrows at the point." The point was the North Carolina staging ground for the Agency's own black ops ground forces. It didn't hurt that it wasn't that far of a drive to the Army's Fort Bragg.

"Rayner ran off at the mouth."

He didn't laugh, but there was mirth in his expression, "He was easy. We showed up one day, man knew enough to know that we were on the same side, and I steered the conversation to pretend that I only cared about keeping the Russians from a bigger bomb."

"Is that what came out of the OSS?"

"A Naquadah bomb, yeah we recovered it from Argentina in the early sixties. We didn't even know what we had, but the pieces have come together."

"You -"

"A goa'uld bomb yes," He held up a hand, "Its secure, but based off what we know it would pack a hell of a punch. It belonged to a Goa'uld named Baal apparently he had planned to use it against Sokar, which from your reaction those names mean something is going on- you want to fill me, or do you want a bigger taste?"

"This is big Tony, big." Jack replied, "I'm getting another beer you want one?"

"Absolutely."

"So you found a bomb,"

"And we know about the starship that was buried in Egypt," The spook replied, "I didn't bring photos of it, but I've seen it... and saw the one that came to deal with that asteroid... I take it there was some reason you couldn't just have nuked that rock?"

"It was naquadah."

The bottle clinked on the counter, "Hell, really, I read the shrinks report of how that stuff reacts ... so not accidental then."

He wasn't sure if the spook was asking a question that he already knew an answer for but Jack was already in the fridge and moved his hand back to press the Asgard beacon he kept in the back just as a precaution... maybe Thor was still in the neighborhood... maybe he wasn't but it would get back to the SGC somehow or another. He snagged the fresh case of beer and put it on the counter, "Not accidental alien asshole decided to try and be clever. We think his mama took him to go see a movie and he thought it'd be funny."

The spook raised an eyebrow and took a fresh bottle of beer, "For real?"

"With Anubis? We're considering it a strong possibility. He's been on Earth seemingly frequently, and from what we understand he's been visiting before we were going back out there." It was a major security concern for the SGC, and the NID, and the Russians were probably panicking as well about... and yeah that might be the right response... they weren't sure how that worked, "But I'm getting ahead of myself, what do you know about things?"

"The Goa'uld rule the galaxy, think they're gods... but from what the OSS put together they misbehaved and their parents kicked them off earth."

"What," Jack nearly spilled his beer, "NO we kicked their asses off earth, there was a rebellion in Egypt and it pushed Ra off the planet."

The CIA man shook his head, "Not the way we read it, the Alteran banished the goa'uld from Earth for breaking their rules. That's why we didn't get reinvaded, and why there was a gate in Antarctica, and why China developed the way it did..."

Jack paused... leaving aside Yu issue and yeah okay, "And why Sokar could use it." He shook his head, "You know what Goa'uld means then?"

"Children of the Gods."
--
Notes: Hello, and welcome back, its a new year and figured I would update this finally. Hopefully i will manage to update jumpchain more frequently this year.