Something like a crossroads song (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
charlieblue) wrote2008-05-11 02:20 am
charlieblue) wrote2008-05-11 02:20 am
SGA ficlet: Triad
Title: Triad.
Summary: Short, concept-fic with a slight future/AU feel. How the SGC views the Atlanteans when they come on home visits.
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 380
Notes: Only general spoilers, none for season four as I have not seen it yet, but the assumption that Elizabeth survives in this 'verse.
Characters mentioned by name are: Jack O'Neill, John Sheppard, Elizabeth Weir and Rodney McKay.
Gen.
The people of Atlantis have become infamous among those with the clearance to know about them.
When the Lanteans visit Earth, when they walk once more among their home peoples, those people watch them, and see diamond-edged killers, genius madmen and ruthless leaders.
For all their humour, all their surface friendliness and camaraderie with the people of the SGC, the Atlantis Expedition cannot conceal the hardness within, the shining fervour that comes from being survivors and warriors of a galaxy overrun with a superior lifeform, a predator. The Wraith.
To the people of Earth whom they encounter, the Atlanteans are not merely explorers returning home from alien wonders … they are the alien wonders. Outlandish and unpredictable, whenever they are on base, everyone desires to speak with one of them and everyone fears to touch, to get too close.
They crackle with an exotic energy, always alert, paranoid and fascinating as they stride the halls, sometimes alone, sometimes in twos or threes, speaking as if reading each other’s minds, voices rising and falling in unison, using words like ‘organic hive’ and ‘genetic mutations’ and ‘home’ like they are not there.
They are no longer the familiar and comforting creatures of Earth.
When they do return one time, O’Neill is there, and he watches, listens, reads the mission reports. These are the things that lodge in his mind.
Sheppard says:
‘I’ve never fought a war against someone who wasn’t human. It's … liberating, to say the least.’
And his voice makes a joke of it, while his eyes remain cold, considering.
McKay says many things.
His incessant diatribes of his many internal mental exercises and quicksilver thought diversions have, on occasion, been known to drive men to suicide.
The man is no longer a scientist. He is a judge, blind, with the fundamental power to save or destroy. Or create.
Weir smiles her soft smiles and speaks in riddles.
She makes compromises, lets the brass win their battles, treads softly and sparkles her eyes. She is weak, to them, she is soft and female and diplomatic.
Then, like a viper, she dodges a bullet and pours poison into the works. She leads her people, and her people have survived, no matter the cost.
That says more than anything.
Summary: Short, concept-fic with a slight future/AU feel. How the SGC views the Atlanteans when they come on home visits.
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 380
Notes: Only general spoilers, none for season four as I have not seen it yet, but the assumption that Elizabeth survives in this 'verse.
Characters mentioned by name are: Jack O'Neill, John Sheppard, Elizabeth Weir and Rodney McKay.
Gen.
The people of Atlantis have become infamous among those with the clearance to know about them.
When the Lanteans visit Earth, when they walk once more among their home peoples, those people watch them, and see diamond-edged killers, genius madmen and ruthless leaders.
For all their humour, all their surface friendliness and camaraderie with the people of the SGC, the Atlantis Expedition cannot conceal the hardness within, the shining fervour that comes from being survivors and warriors of a galaxy overrun with a superior lifeform, a predator. The Wraith.
To the people of Earth whom they encounter, the Atlanteans are not merely explorers returning home from alien wonders … they are the alien wonders. Outlandish and unpredictable, whenever they are on base, everyone desires to speak with one of them and everyone fears to touch, to get too close.
They crackle with an exotic energy, always alert, paranoid and fascinating as they stride the halls, sometimes alone, sometimes in twos or threes, speaking as if reading each other’s minds, voices rising and falling in unison, using words like ‘organic hive’ and ‘genetic mutations’ and ‘home’ like they are not there.
They are no longer the familiar and comforting creatures of Earth.
When they do return one time, O’Neill is there, and he watches, listens, reads the mission reports. These are the things that lodge in his mind.
Sheppard says:
‘I’ve never fought a war against someone who wasn’t human. It's … liberating, to say the least.’
And his voice makes a joke of it, while his eyes remain cold, considering.
McKay says many things.
His incessant diatribes of his many internal mental exercises and quicksilver thought diversions have, on occasion, been known to drive men to suicide.
The man is no longer a scientist. He is a judge, blind, with the fundamental power to save or destroy. Or create.
Weir smiles her soft smiles and speaks in riddles.
She makes compromises, lets the brass win their battles, treads softly and sparkles her eyes. She is weak, to them, she is soft and female and diplomatic.
Then, like a viper, she dodges a bullet and pours poison into the works. She leads her people, and her people have survived, no matter the cost.
That says more than anything.