Ultimate Weapon, by Sophonisba [ancient history challenge]

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

-title- Ultimate Weapon
-author- Sophonisba (saphanibaal)
-warnings- Gen. Some religious themes. This was going to be part of my pet AU, but the Zophonisbeion has since evolved beyond it, so now it's a closer-to-canon AU influenced by my larger one.
-timeframe- Late second season.
-spoilers- General for the last two seasons of SG-1, maybe?
-characters- Sheppard, Elizabeth, OCs, guest appearance by Beckett
-disclaimer- SGA, of course, is not mine. Nor is the planet Magrathea, to which reference is at one point made -- that was the late great Douglas Adams. Nor, obviously, is the story in question, and I hope I have not treated it overly rudely.
-word count- 477
-summary- Sheppard has a bright idea. Elizabeth doesn't get it.

Lethal Weapon

"Oh, sorry, didn't realize you were busy." John Sheppard froze in the door, noting the biologists and medical personnel sitting around the conference table.

"We're still waiting on a few people," Elizabeth said. "Is it urgent? Or private?"

"Not really," he shrugged. "I was thinking about that superweapon they asked us to keep an eye out for?"

"The -- you mean the one against the Ori?"

"Yeah, that. It works on Ascended beings, right? So shouldn't they be looking for the one from the story of Soulianis and Rabban?"

Elizabeth reached up and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. It was really too early in the morning for this stuff. "I'm afraid I don't understand you."

"In the story, Soulianis descended to the earth as a baby and grew up and married the prince, right? And then Rabban carried her off and tried to persuade her to give up her humanity and rule all space and time with him, which sounds like Ascension to me..."

"I suppose you'd know." Elizabeth privately wondered what story he was talking about; it sounded vaguely familiar, but princesses getting carried off by demons/dragons/ogres were a dime a dozen even before you got into the deliberately created tales.

"So then the prince follows her to Rabban's castle with his brother and the manniks and berserks, and he tries to kill Rabban with his ultimate weapon but it doesn't take until he aims sideways at the place where Rabban's immortality is coming from, and that could be a weapon to kill Ascended? And everyone went home afterwards, so they could start looking on Earth, couldn't they?"

Elizabeth blinked. Twice. "John, did you get any sleep at all in the past twenty-four hours?"

"Uh... no?"

To her right, Drs. Kumar and Lakhshmaniyah were having muted hysterics, and Dr. Bien wasn't far behind.

Elizabeth took a deep breath.

"I think only gods or their avatars can use it without blowing up the planet," Lakhshmaniyah choked out between giggles.

"...oh." Sheppard brightened. "But the people who are don't always know they are, so they could find it and then pass it around everyone to see whether they could use it, right?"

"Blowing up the planet," Lakhshmaniyah repeated.

"John," Elizabeth said firmly. "Go. Get some rest. Out."

Sheppard went, as Bien wondered in an unfortunately piercing whisper "Soulianis?!"

"Magrathea!" Kumar hissed.

Carson Beckett bustled in and set a laptop on the table. "Sorry I've been running late. Did I miss anything?"

"Not really," Elizabeth said, ignoring the chortling staff and wishing for another mug of blue-rose tea. She didn't want to know. She really didn't want to know.

Although she'd probably have to make Sheppard run the idea by the SGC once he was capable of a more professional delivery, considering the times when lives had been saved by sillier-sounding ideas.

Comments

[rebeccasmask.livejournal.com]

I love your universe. I'm wondering exactly how this doesn't fit in with your main AU. I think you've mentioned Soulianis and Rabban before, but I don't know what they're from if they're not yours. Also, the cut tag makes me curious.

Basically, I am very dense and need more sleep.
PS: Every time I read one of your stories, I want some blue-rose tea.

Ultimate Weapon - story

[maxinemayer.livejournal.com]

I love John at his unconsciously brilliant best, and the way other people just won't take him seriously if he's not holding a gun in his hands! They just don't get John, who contains multitudes....

Lovely piece. Thank you for sharing.
Love, max

[bratfarrar]

Sleep-deprived John is so much fun. Though I must admit, I'm in the same boat as Elizabeth--got the Magrathea reference, but the rest of it?

(You know, you really need to put together a consolidated mythology or something for this AU, because I'm always left going "but where's the rest of it?")

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your kind comments!

//I'm wondering exactly how this doesn't fit in with your main AU.//

Well, given the logical results of some of the developments I've put into the Zophonisbeion, they haven't cracked Avalon yet, so nobody's out specifically looking for anti-Ascended-being-weapons.

//Also, the cut tag makes me curious.//

The thing to remember is that Sheppard's referring to the personages in the story by a nonstandard set of names, which is what's throwing Elizabeth. (I haven't the faintest idea what Dr. Bien grew up calling them, for that matter.) But if you asked Drs. Kumar and Lakshmaniyah, they'd refer to the beings in question as Sita and Ravana.

//PS: Every time I read one of your stories, I want some blue-rose tea.//

I want some, too, and I invented it. ^_^

Once again, thank you for replying!

Re: Ultimate Weapon - story

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair to the members of the meeting, "let's shoot them with the Kodanda" as a plan is missing a number of very important steps, not least among them the whole Brahm-astra thing.

(Also, a good part of John's image is of his own cultivation; if that's now getting in his way, he's at least partly to blame.)

Thank you for your kind comments!

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

//Though I must admit, I'm in the same boat as Elizabeth--got the Magrathea reference, but the rest of it?//

Well, Magrathea's suns were Soulianis and Rahm.

If you asked, say, Dr. Kumar, he would tell you that Ram's wife's human incarnation's name was Sita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sita), and that Sheppard's sleep-deprived version of the story, while not mangled beyond all recognition, bears a distinct resemblance to the form of accuracy employed in 1066 And All That.

//(You know, you really need to put together a consolidated mythology or something for this AU,//

(I do have that list of back-end facts for all this to eventually bring out in story form one way or another, although part of the side effects of writing this from the inside out is that I keep thinking of more things to work in somehow or another, especially when canon goes around throwing inconvenient developments at me...)

Thank you for your kind comments!

[rebeccasmask.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, so there was a reason I kept thinking of the story-in-a-story from the Secret Garden movie?

[saphanibaal.livejournal.com]

...I'm afraid I don't know the movie adaptation in question: when was the one that used the Ramayana, and how much did it feel like the book?

[rebeccasmask.livejournal.com]

...that would be because I meant "A Little Princess". Sorry, I always get those two mixed up.