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fandomweekly2024-02-03 02:36 pm
badly_knitted) wrote in fandomweekly2024-02-03 02:36 pm
Entry tags:
[#208] Not His Earth (Stargate SG-1)
Theme Prompt: #208 – Parallels
Title: Not His Earth
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Rating/Warnings: PG / None.
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: It looks like the Gate room Daniel left from, and yet it isn’t. Somehow he’s stumbled into a parallel universe, but how will he get back home?
Passing through the Stargate had become almost routine in the months since Sha’re’s abduction and Daniel’s return to earth. Outward bound could be a bit uncertain, despite the images sent back by the MALP before General Hammond authorised a mission, but the return home was, for the most part, reasonably straightforward.
Not this time.
For one thing, the rest of SG-1 had apparently left him behind, just because he’d been a little slow in responding when Jack had ordered an EVAC, but when he stepped through into the Gate room and found himself faced with multiple weapons aimed at him… That was the first sign things might be a bit… off. No one seemed to know who he was, which was insane, considering he’d only left through the Gate maybe an hour ago. Had everyone at Stargate Command somehow lost their collective memory?
It made no sense, and the more Daniel learned, the more confused he became, to the point where he had to wonder whether he was having a really bizarre dream. Or maybe he was the one who’d lost his mind. He could be hallucinating… Maybe he was still unconscious from having come through the gate too fast a few weeks ago. From his perspective.
General Hammond was suddenly a Colonel, Jack O’Neill was a General, Sam Carter wasn’t even in the military, Teal’c had never switched sides, and Catherine Langford was in charge. Daniel’s sheer relief at that discovery was short-lived. Catherine was the one who’d solved the mystery of the gate and got it working. She claimed she’d approached him for help, but he’d turned her down, quite rudely, apparently, which didn’t sound like him. Why would he refuse?
On top of that, Dr Langford had never been reunited with her long-lost fiancé, so Ernest Littlefield must still be alone on that planet, with no chance of rescue.
Oh, and the Goa’uld were currently bombarding earth from space, which was… bad. Evacuation to the beta site was currently underway, just the people deemed most important since there would be no way to evacuate an entire planet through one small Stargate deep beneath a mountain, even if an invasion wasn’t underway. So, not a weird dream, more like Daniel’s worst nightmare come to life.
After some discussion, a tentative hypothesis was reached: Daniel was on earth, it just wasn’t HIS earth. Instead, he’d somehow stepped through the gate into an alternate universe, a parallel world where most things were as he remembered, but some of the details had changed, like him never becoming part of SG-1. The only possible explanation was that it had something to do with the mirror he’d found on P3R-233.
He didn’t belong here.
The sense of dislocation was… unsettling, to say the least. It made him wonder about… himself, actually, or at least the version on him that belonged in this universe. Why had he turned down Dr Langford’s offer? What could possibly be more important than translating the Giza Cartouche? Daniel being Daniel, the obvious thing to do was to research himself. Finding an unoccupied computer terminal, he ran a search.
“Current address, unknown. Phone number, unknown. Last place of residence, Egypt as of 1997.” It certainly sounded like him, and the photo accompanying the information looked like him. Riding a camel. “So, I guess we’re not so different.” Maybe he could meet himself for real, not just a copy but an actual alternate version of himself. Daniel had some questions he’d very much like to ask himself.
Then it hit him. Last known place of residence, Egypt. He walked over to the wall map, studied the pattern of red dots indicating Goa’uld strikes. Egypt was under there somewhere.
“Uh oh.”
Dr Carter looked up at him. “What?”
“I think I’m dead. The me in this reality,” he corrected. Looked like he’d never get any answers to his questions.
How was it possible to feel homesick when he was already home? Only this wasn’t his home; the earth he came from was the other side of an alien mirror located on another planet, accessible only through the Stargate, and the Goa’uld were preventing anyone in the SGC from dialling out. Earth didn’t have a DHD, and using the computers to dial was just that little bit too slow.
Just like this earth’s version of himself, Daniel was going to die here, and no one back home would ever know what had happened to him. Suddenly it seemed vital that he should get back to his earth. If the Goa’uld could come here in ships, they could do the same in his reality, his dimension, and his earth would be just as unprepared, just as helpless, unless he could warn them.
Convincing General O’Neill and the others wasn’t easy, and Daniel was more than a little surprised that the man was willing to even hear him out. Jack, either version of him, could be stubborn and unwilling to listen to anything he didn’t want to hear, and yet…
Sam, Dr Carter, General O’Neill’s fiancée, worked at the computers, intent on shaving a crucial few seconds off the dialling time. Jack went to buy some time by trying to convince this universe’s version of Teal’c to switch sides, or at least convince him of the possibility of parallel universes. Anything to slow the Goa’uld incursion.
It was the only chance Daniel had, the only chance, in all probability, that his earth had, and he felt guilty because Jack, Sam, Catherine, and Colonel Hammond might have been able to save themselves, and most of the men and women still in the SGC. They’d be sacrificing their only chance of escape for someone they didn’t even know. But their earth was doomed while his might still be saved. The two versions of earth were alike enough that an all-out Goa’uld attack on his world was almost guaranteed.
Standing in the Gate room, waiting for the Gate to dial, Daniel hoped and prayed this would work.
The End
Not this time.
For one thing, the rest of SG-1 had apparently left him behind, just because he’d been a little slow in responding when Jack had ordered an EVAC, but when he stepped through into the Gate room and found himself faced with multiple weapons aimed at him… That was the first sign things might be a bit… off. No one seemed to know who he was, which was insane, considering he’d only left through the Gate maybe an hour ago. Had everyone at Stargate Command somehow lost their collective memory?
It made no sense, and the more Daniel learned, the more confused he became, to the point where he had to wonder whether he was having a really bizarre dream. Or maybe he was the one who’d lost his mind. He could be hallucinating… Maybe he was still unconscious from having come through the gate too fast a few weeks ago. From his perspective.
General Hammond was suddenly a Colonel, Jack O’Neill was a General, Sam Carter wasn’t even in the military, Teal’c had never switched sides, and Catherine Langford was in charge. Daniel’s sheer relief at that discovery was short-lived. Catherine was the one who’d solved the mystery of the gate and got it working. She claimed she’d approached him for help, but he’d turned her down, quite rudely, apparently, which didn’t sound like him. Why would he refuse?
On top of that, Dr Langford had never been reunited with her long-lost fiancé, so Ernest Littlefield must still be alone on that planet, with no chance of rescue.
Oh, and the Goa’uld were currently bombarding earth from space, which was… bad. Evacuation to the beta site was currently underway, just the people deemed most important since there would be no way to evacuate an entire planet through one small Stargate deep beneath a mountain, even if an invasion wasn’t underway. So, not a weird dream, more like Daniel’s worst nightmare come to life.
After some discussion, a tentative hypothesis was reached: Daniel was on earth, it just wasn’t HIS earth. Instead, he’d somehow stepped through the gate into an alternate universe, a parallel world where most things were as he remembered, but some of the details had changed, like him never becoming part of SG-1. The only possible explanation was that it had something to do with the mirror he’d found on P3R-233.
He didn’t belong here.
The sense of dislocation was… unsettling, to say the least. It made him wonder about… himself, actually, or at least the version on him that belonged in this universe. Why had he turned down Dr Langford’s offer? What could possibly be more important than translating the Giza Cartouche? Daniel being Daniel, the obvious thing to do was to research himself. Finding an unoccupied computer terminal, he ran a search.
“Current address, unknown. Phone number, unknown. Last place of residence, Egypt as of 1997.” It certainly sounded like him, and the photo accompanying the information looked like him. Riding a camel. “So, I guess we’re not so different.” Maybe he could meet himself for real, not just a copy but an actual alternate version of himself. Daniel had some questions he’d very much like to ask himself.
Then it hit him. Last known place of residence, Egypt. He walked over to the wall map, studied the pattern of red dots indicating Goa’uld strikes. Egypt was under there somewhere.
“Uh oh.”
Dr Carter looked up at him. “What?”
“I think I’m dead. The me in this reality,” he corrected. Looked like he’d never get any answers to his questions.
How was it possible to feel homesick when he was already home? Only this wasn’t his home; the earth he came from was the other side of an alien mirror located on another planet, accessible only through the Stargate, and the Goa’uld were preventing anyone in the SGC from dialling out. Earth didn’t have a DHD, and using the computers to dial was just that little bit too slow.
Just like this earth’s version of himself, Daniel was going to die here, and no one back home would ever know what had happened to him. Suddenly it seemed vital that he should get back to his earth. If the Goa’uld could come here in ships, they could do the same in his reality, his dimension, and his earth would be just as unprepared, just as helpless, unless he could warn them.
Convincing General O’Neill and the others wasn’t easy, and Daniel was more than a little surprised that the man was willing to even hear him out. Jack, either version of him, could be stubborn and unwilling to listen to anything he didn’t want to hear, and yet…
Sam, Dr Carter, General O’Neill’s fiancée, worked at the computers, intent on shaving a crucial few seconds off the dialling time. Jack went to buy some time by trying to convince this universe’s version of Teal’c to switch sides, or at least convince him of the possibility of parallel universes. Anything to slow the Goa’uld incursion.
It was the only chance Daniel had, the only chance, in all probability, that his earth had, and he felt guilty because Jack, Sam, Catherine, and Colonel Hammond might have been able to save themselves, and most of the men and women still in the SGC. They’d be sacrificing their only chance of escape for someone they didn’t even know. But their earth was doomed while his might still be saved. The two versions of earth were alike enough that an all-out Goa’uld attack on his world was almost guaranteed.
Standing in the Gate room, waiting for the Gate to dial, Daniel hoped and prayed this would work.
The End