Thus it turned out that Asgards could subdue a finite number of basic blocks of his body with 'willpower'. But on the other hand, within a three-dimensional space of the astral body the number of blocks could be of any type that is allowed to make them small enough to obtain the ability to change size when the volume of the body comparable to the size of the person.
I spent three months to develop and fine-tune this technology. Finally, I enclosed Loki's soul in the final version of the astral body and let him come into contact with a mass of blocks of replicators of the latest model. Now their sizes do not exceed one tenth of a millimeter while retaining all the possibilities.
A pile of silver metal stirred, stretched up and took the form of Asgard. It took another couple of seconds to get the color and texture of the surface back to normal.
“It is working.” Loki said, crouching and waving his arms. "God, it's been a long time since I felt what is a normal body look like.”
“I would not call this form ‘normal’.” I said. “Look at yourself. Those duck legs. These hands are sticks. And this head? Is that how Asgard should look?”
“You're right. It is necessary to take the image of how I looked like when I was alive.”
The new body contained not only a Replicator program, but also a copy of Loki's memory recorded in the biorobot. It was not part of the soul, nor was it part of the Replicator program. Rather, it was stored on a storage created from replicators. It was quite possible to lose it, so, Loki in the future ought to attend to the creation of backups, where will be kept a 'starter' supply of replicators for the revival and encrypted copy of his memory. In the end, the computer in the head of each biorobot stored a huge amount of information, including knowledge of Asgard technology.
While I pondered about the high matters, Loki took body shape of a tall, sinewy man in colorful armor. His hair was red and his features were Irish. Most attention was attracted by his piercing green eyes, sparkling like emeralds. I spend a few days to create the technology that allows replicators to depict not just color, but also transparent and translucent materials.
"So the asgards were also related to humans?" I asked.
“Yeah. Outwardly, we were not much different from the Ancients. Well, unless, of course, you take into account the color of hair and facial features. We were far better, constantly infuriated by these immortal wannabes.”
I noticed that Loki had changed his mind and his manner of speaking. No more of those sad long-winded explanations of the obvious things.
“I think we need a week to test your new body, and then come back to the planet of Asgard to rescue who they could.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately, my brothers are too few. We were billions long time ago but now we're hundreds. I can't imagine how I could last thirty thousand years. It was extremely sad millennia.”
“I can imagine. Asgards’ communication manner can freeze brains of any intelligent life form.”
Loki went to the computer, connected to it and began to exchange information. I controlled the process out of the corner of my eye. In the computer database, there were a lot of my trojans, which allowed me to copy all the valuable information, including technologies of the Asgard.
“By the way, what do you call your life form? You're not Asgard anymore.”
“I haven't decided. Maybe Laky?”
“Well, then it's better just ‘Alky’. So it's easier to pronounce, and the letters are the same.
“No, it doesn't sound nice. Better then look to the source of our race. My family was called Jotun. So let me be called Jotuns.”
“Thor will be shocked.”
"Ha, that little dwarf will explode with envy when he find out that I was able to come back to life.”
“Well, in my opinion Thor will be a little melancholier.” I objected.
“I'm talking about his soul. We have repeatedly argued about how to save the remnants of our civilization. I offered to separate and take care of my own salvation, and he was trying to make the Councils to make the right decision. As if their decision made any sense. A majority of Council members were from the clan of the Aesir, so Thor planned to maintain their power.”
Yeah. The history of the possessing for power will be never outdated. 'If I can’t get that power to myself then I won’t let anyone obtain that power'. A great motto for any ruler. Not less than the standard: 'After us even deluge'. If you combine these two concepts, you will get the cause of the destruction of all civilizations without exception.
Pilot operation of the bodies of the Jotuns went without complications. During this time, Loki was able to complete the flagship of the Asgard fleet, using replicators as a labor force, and three other ships captured by us as a source of resources.
At that time I engaged in the modernization of my hat’ak, I could obtain any volume of resources at any time indefinitely. All systems of the ship underwent to modernization. Weapons, shields, emergency reactor, hyperdrive, inertial engines, scanners and sensors, and of course, a Central computer with repair robots.
In addition, I changed the appearance of the ship. Although it still had the shape of a pyramid, the design of the decoration was more in line with the mixture of designs of ancient ships and space stations of the cephs. I also installed to ship a lot of long wet tentacles that can swaddle the enemy’s ship. The surface of the pyramid was black and covered with glowing 'mythical symbols'. Even one glance to this spaceship will plunge mere mortals in to panic attack.
It was this attack that began in the asgards, when my ship and the former flagship of their fleet appeared in orbit of the planet. The biorobots’ technique could detect the presence of replicators, so all their forces began to prepare for battle. But after a few seconds Loki took form of a biorobot and started to broadcast video from flagman.
"My brothers, you are welcomed by Loki, a leading scientific of your race and a former member of the Council. In cooperation with Imhotep the representative of a highly developed civilization, I was able to subdue replicators. If you agree with my proposal, we can completely neutralize the threat of the replicators. I ask to assemble High Council of Asgards, at which I will make a public speech. Every Asgard has a right to know that the succession of defeats in the war with the replicators has come to an end. Before the start of the Assemble my ship and a ship of my ally will be in the far orbit of the planet.”
Loki used one of the procedures for assembling the High Council of Asgard. The rules and laws of society were written in the brains of the biorobots, so there was nothing left to do but follow Protocol.
The Council assembled in two hours. At the appointed time, Loki teleported directly to the podium, which was fenced off by force fields in case of replicators. And they really got there. Not this caused the effect of the exploded bomb, but the appearance of Loki. This time he took his new Irish desing.
His speech was to be broadcast to all the colonies and ships of civilization. But the addresses were not only biorobots, even souls. Many of the ghosts went to the front to somehow help their unlucky clones. Now we gave them a signal that they should return to their home planet.
“Citizens of Asgard! I'm glad to tell you that I was able to come back to life. I am Loki, the head of the Jotun clan. Thanks to the help of Imhotep, the God of knowledge, I was able to regain my body. From now on, I am not a powerless spirit, but the leader of a new race of Jotuns. Everyone can come to our home world and join to me. Together, we can stop the Replicators invasion and restore Asgard to its former glory.”
“This is outrageous, please stop.” One of the Council members tried to intervene.
“Especially for biorobots who consider themselves as Asgard, I report that from now on there is no need for your existence. You must return to the homeworld of the Asgard, where you will handover your body to your original soul. Broadcasting emergency gathering code.”
Then Loki began to publish a fast sounds of crash and noise, which were coded command to compelling bio-robots to return to their own world. The asgards tried to stop video broadcasting, but faced opposition of my chakra clone and many small colonies of replicators, intercepted the control of computer systems. In fact, it was the collapse of the Asgard civilization and the birth of the Jotun civilization.
After a few minutes, the ships of the asgards began to arrive, on which the remains of this civilization returned to their native world. Thanks to a hacked Central computer, Loki and I took control of all the data streams. This prevented robots from revolting, unable to understand with their electronic brains that power had changed.
Then began the exodus of ghosts. One by one, the souls of the asgards came to me, and I gave them astral bodies, after which they received a bunch of replicators and created from them their personal physical body. Loki became the leader of the new society, pouring propaganda in the ears of the spiritual fire victims with his speeches about how he cares about the entire Asgard race in general and about them in particular.
Finally, when ended all who wished to partake of the source of good in my person, there was a General meeting of the Jotun race. There they decided that destroying the Asgards makes no sense, and it is better to force them to bring at least some benefit to their new owners. Here the bookmark in the program on fidelity to Council came in very handy. A specially arranged impeachment procedure made the Jotuns as members of the Council, after which they issued all the necessary regulations. From the point of view of machines, the transfer of power was legal, and therefore full legislative and executive power belonged to the new Council.
To my surprise, I learned that Thor and his subordinate group of asgards had not arrived on the planet. This cunning beetle subdued his biorobot long ago and founded his own clan of asgards with the main base in the Milky Way galaxy. Naturally, he could not to submit to his ideological enemy, to Loki. In turn, Loki also are not eager to give an opportunity to the opponent to come back to life. Thor was the only one among the survived ghosts of the asgards who could challenge his power.
After a couple of weeks, all the turmoil gradually subsided, and life took a new direction. The Jotuns scattered across the galaxy, saving the few remaining worlds from the invasion of replicators. Fighting mechanical beetles with each other was not very productive, but perfectly occupied the representatives of the new race, so that they had no time for anything else.
Actually, I expected such an outcome. Several hundred Jotuns could not turn the tide of this war without a significant technological advantage. I didn't give them that advantage. All they had were new bodies working on principles which they didn't understand. Of course, now they were truly intelligent creatures who would sooner or later figure out how to deal with replicators. But it will took time and a lot of effort.
Meanwhile, I was researching Asgard technology. Although they were less technologically advanced than the Ancients, but some of their inventions were quite interesting. At the past time Ancients were never able to get to these secrets, probably considering them as unworthy of their attention.
I was sitting in ship and thinking about technologies for new types of weapons when I felt some discomfort. After analyzing my feelings, I realized that I received a stream of Bahion coming from Jack O'neill that mixed with his emotions of despair and sincere prayers for me.
Normally, Jack didn't even think to worship me, so all Bahion going to me through my believers just scattered in space. But here is he bursting. Plus, the emotions that reached me were not the most positive, so it was unpleasant to perceive them. Strange, what could cause this?
I focused on my walkie-talkies, which I gave to the Earthlings, but could not get any response from the spells. It's getting weirder and weirder. Going to the Stargate, I tried to dial the address of the Earth. A connection could not be established. What the fuck? I connected to the gate, diagnosed its operation, started opening the gate in 'debug mode', and again could not open the gate. The technique said that the called gate is working, but it is 'out of range'.
Not having managed to solve a problem from a rush, I began to remember that at this time occurred in series. Soon everything became clear. Earth and a few more stars were in the range of the machine of the Ancients, and machine created time loop. This area of space was no longer available for movement. And even magic can't break through that barrier. But Bahion can completely ignore any obstacles. I wonder what about the chakra?
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I focused on the hiraishin seal on Jack. It felt great.
Teleporting myself inside the anomaly seemed dangerous to me, so clone was sent instead of me.
My clone appeared next to Jack in a small room with two double beds. The sufferer lay on the lower tier of one of them and sighed loudly.
“Hi. Why are you feeling soo crook?” I said hello.
“Imhotep!!!” Jack shouted, jumping up to his feet. “Please do something. I've had enough of these endless prayers in your honor.”
“What?” I was stunned.
"I promised to Teal'c to hold praying ceremony in your honor every Friday. And thanks to some ancient machine, we have a time loop. Because of this, there are not only seven Fridays in a week, but thirty-one Fridays in a month. And each time the orgies and covens arranged by Teal’c become more and more fanatical and exalted, and I must endure all of this, and even bless them!”
“Orgies? I never thought that Teal'c would do this.”
“I mean, they have prayers and songs and dances and sermons and so on. And all this from morning to night every day for more than two months. Do you like this worship so much?”
“Do I like?” interesting question.
When I was doing all this trolling, I just wanted to laugh at the primitive people. But on the other hand, the feelings I feel at the same time said that it could be my subconscious desire. I liked to fool others and make them worship me. But now, I don’t need such desire? The very idea that someone is praying for me, doesn’t cause nothing but disgust. How would you like to know that the worms in the dung heap praying to you, worship you and offer humble prayers?
What did cause such change? Maybe the fact that I was Goa’uld? I thought I was the same as always. But it turns out that the Goa’ulds’ desire to be gods affected me. Then we can assume that my desire to establish law and order in the world of Worm is the result of the influence consciousness of Bivits Swine. Because right now, global injustice doesn't really bother me. As for me now, how about influence of my presence Vritras body?
I thought for a moment. Exactly. Before the change of body, I could not imagine my life without sex. That's how I was affected by the Skuli, and I didn't see anything wrong with it. But after that, the desire to have sex almost as cut off. At the same time, I know that I can have sex and get pleasure from it, but I do not feel urgent need for this. I've never had sex in this body before. Of course, this is small loss, but the question is different. I should pay more attention to how my behavior changes in the new body.
As I pondered these philosophical questions, Jack waited patiently for an answer. Yeah, he's got a lot of patience. With such incentive.
“So, where is these prayers? We should organize a phenomenon of the Lord and besiege the most zealous followers.”
“It is useless” Jack waved hand, again sinking on bed and glancing on clock. “In an hour, the universe will reset, and I'll be back in the dining room. And all your talking will be erased from the memory of everyone but me and Teal'c.”
“Have you tried to break this cycle?”
“Tried. But then Teal'c saw through the chip, and he started sabotaging my efforts, for one thing, arousing the masses with faith in you. And most importantly, this faith is growing every day. I noticed that a couple of weeks ago. I'm afraid to imagine what will happen here in a month.”
“Nothing's gonna happen here. We just need to break the cycle, and then tomorrow will finally come Saturday.”
“Then, let’s go.” Jack jumped out of bed and rushed down the hallway.
“Do you remember the address?”
“By heart.”
We went through the base and got to the gate room. Along the way, people stared at me, and some threw themselves on their knees or began to sing some ditties to my glory. At glance, it was not like a military base, but some madhouse on the road.
"O great one, even greater than Buddha. You've finally made us happy to be here!” General Hammond said, prostrate and beating off bows.
Oh my God! Give me strength!!!
“I bless you, General. I need to open a gate to a planet.”
“Of course! We are ready to serve you day and night.”
I wonder if it's contagious. Will not I start worshipping myself?
Teal’c came to room out of breath.
“My God! Imhotep! All people around here are happy that you're here. Let us sing your glory! We are ready to begin the service right now where you can bless every devotee of you.”
“Not now. I have urgent business.”
Teal'c glanced at the screen and saw the address.
“General!” He rushed to Hammond. “We have to stop address dialing. We need to start the service and... h-h-h-R-R-R-R…”
Teal'c grunted as I grabbed him by his throat and lifted him off the floor while growing to three meters tall.
“Here, only I will decide who and what to do. General, please continue. And you, Teal'c, you will be punished for resisting my will!” I put a temporary paralysis spell to the nigger and threw him aside. I'll deal with him later.
The gate opened, Jack and I hurried in. We were in another lifeless world. Ahead was covered with granite path, the edges of which stood the granite pillars with holes. In front of the arch was seen a dais, resembling a stone table or altar.
“Malakai! Show yourself!” Jack shouted.
We went forward, and Jack stopped at the border of invisible repulsive force field. Nothing material could overcome it, but my clone did not suffer with materiality, so I passed freely to the device of the Ancients in the form of a table on the surface of which there were many square stone blocks (https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Time_loop_machine). What have we got here?
A thin man with scars on his face jumped out from the side.
“What? How did you get here?” He was surprised.
I ignored this appeal, reading the inscriptions in the language of the Ancients.
“Malakai, you have to stop this device.” Jack shouted. “Or in the next cycle, I will bring an atomic bomb and blow everything to the fuck in here!
“No! I have to get her back…”
As the two mortals poured out their souls to each other, I studied the device. Although I was here only as a clone, I had some ways of interacting directly with the ancient techniques. Five minutes later, I realized that this machine has not ancient technology. All surrounding was built by Ancient, but the main artifact worked on very different principles.
This device worked on expense of cumulated Bahion. And the essence of its effects was to appeal to a higher power. At the same time, the characteristic of energy said that the addressee of the message is... a local Judge of the Game.
In fact, this device allows you to 'save' a certain state of the Universe, and then 'load' it. A sort of slot you saved in the game. In this slot will be saved the moment of activation of the device, which occurred fourteen hours ago.
In general, this device was funny, interesting, but useless to me. I didn't want to get involved to Game with the local Players. I don’t need any Players’ anger or love.
“This thing won't help you.” I addressed to the time-terrorist. “It can only return universe to the time when it was activated. That is in our case just a few hours ago.”
“No! I'll be able to sort out this device and…”
“You cannot. I am the God of knowledge! I know exactly how this device works, what it does and why it is needed at all. With it you can only go back fourteen hours. And besides, the power supply in this machine is not infinite. And I'm afraid to think what price you'll have to pay for trying to activate 'in debt'.”
“I just want her back…” Malakai whispered, sliding to the floor.
“Who?” I asked.
“My wife.”
“Do you have her hair or some other source of DNA?”
“Hair? Yes. I have a locket with her hair.”
“If you stop this device, I'll resurrect her. No time travel is needed. I am God, and the life and death of humans are in my power.”
I collected some Bahion and concentrated, and then the person in front of me literally fell into a state of religious ecstasy. So that's how it works.
“Can you get her back?” Malakai said hopefully.
“Certainly. Stop the device and your wife will come back to life.”
“Nice.”
Hypnotized culprit began to click on the stone squares, changing the mode of operation of the device. I saw that the device only responded to the commands of the one who activated it, so I could not interfere with its operation. And what would be the point of 'saving the game' if enemies could erase the record?
Finally, the device stopped working by going into standby mode. I immediately activated the gate in the Hades galaxy and appeared on this planet in person. Then I had to carry out a fairly simple manipulation. I used magic to summon a woman's soul and recreated her body using DNA from her hair. However, the spell restored the body to the optimal age, that is, till about twenty years. But it's not like anyone was going to complain about that.
There was a tearful meeting of two lovers with hugging and vows of eternal love. I corrected the patient's health a little more, cured her heart defect, then sealed the 'time machine' and left with Jack to the Earth.
Here we were met by a whole delegation. I focused and felt Bahion swirling around. Now it is clear where such religious attacks come from. This is a phenomenon with positive feedback. Apparently, the device had impact on the dispersion of Bahion so it has started to concentrate in one place. Funny, but almost useless. I need billion times more amount of Bahion to restore one of my tail that the energy accumulated in here. Sorrow.
I 'sucked' all Bahion, and the fervor of religious ecstasy in the eyes of others began to fade.
"Mortals, why are you worshiping me?" I asked the audience. Teal’c, standing in the front row, answered me. He quickly recovered. Maybe believing in me helped.
“You are God! " I suppose that explanation was enough, because I have not received any other explanation.
“So?”
“That's all.”
Eh. I don't know what to say against to such argument.
“Worshiping in me does not give you nothing.” I decided to come from the other end.
“We don't need anything. It is not material prosperity that we crave, but spiritual merit.” My most fanatical followers explained the policy of the party.
“There's no merit.” I besieged him. “I know better. I'm God. I'm the one you worship. And I'm telling you, you're not going to get any good out of it. No material, no spiritual, no moral satisfaction, nothing. Because, only God will give such things to his believers, and I have no time to do such nonsense. You believe in me? Wonderful. You have gained valuable spiritual experience. That's all. The circus is over, everybody can dismiss.”
As if taking the last sentence for a guide to action, the audience began to dissolve in the corners. Soon, only the members of SG-1, Hammond, and a few maintenance technicians were standing in front of me. Well, a dozen military duty were hanging out at the gate.
“Teal'c, you don't have to worship me.” I turned to the culprit of the religious revolution. "If you must worship someone, then worship yourself, or Apophis, or Jack.” Colonel shuddered to my words and broke out in a sweat. "True gods are no different from false gods. And those, and other, typically complete assholes. Better to believe in Buddhism, or whatever the process is called? You understand me?”
“Yeah.” In the voice of Teal'c heard the sorrow of the ecumenical level.
“Wonderful. That's all.” I turned to the gate and wondered how I was going to get back. The energy of the local power plant is not enough. “Or not. I'll have to stay with you for a couple of hours. General, you promised me a contribution for the resurrection of the SG-1 members.”
“Yeah, sure.” Hammond started.
“By the way, Daniel, how's your wife doing?” I asked my debtor.
“Nohow. She was hit by a car six months ago.”
“What loss. I'm sorry for your grief.” I said indifferently, following Hammond.
Everything was going according to my plans, so there was nothing to worry about. My clone on Hat’ak, sent the ship to the Earth and he was supposed to arrive in about an hour. During this time, I bought new products of the entertainment industry of the Earth and even installed a 'modem on the chakra', which was supposed to allow me to connect to the Internet from a neighboring galaxy. I put this device on the Central switchboard of the Colorado Spring’s main internet provider. So there is no need to pay, and access will be always at maximum speed.
After saying goodbye to the earthlings, I teleported to my ship and went back to the Jotuns. I had a lot of plans for the study of the technologies of the Ancients and the Asgard. Now I just created technological devices, and the implementation of the same effects at the expense of magic was still in its infancy.
I was not given chance to delve into scientific research too much. Loki linked to me after a few days.
“Imhotep, we need to meet. We're having serious problems with the replicators.”
“Ok” With help of trojans in computer networks, I found place where was Loki, and teleported there. “What's the problem?”
"The replicators have begun to enslave the asgards.”
“How?” I sat down on the chair and began to watch with interest for panicking Loki.
“It all started about three days ago. One of the Jotuns overestimated his strength, and he was destroyed by the replicators. Apparently, they studied his structure, because the next day we found that ordinary beetles are headed by humanoid replicators. But as their strategy of conducting fight from it didn't change, we didn't attach much importance to it.”
Loki brought up a blurred image on a large screen, where something humanoid was accompanied by a crowd of ordinary metal beetles.
“Yesterday one of groups of replicators showed unusual strategy of fight. Not to say that it was particularly effective, but at the expense of surprise to this squad managed to win the fight. We were able to intercept the video, which shows that the operation is led by a Replicator resembling Asgard.”
This time, a dynamic picture appeared on the screen, showing the wandering Asgard. Except his skin looked like it was made of mercury.
"And today, a huge army of replicators attacked one of our planets and captured more than fifty thousand asgards.”
This time the video showed how a live wave of billions of replicators rolls on the fleeing asgards, absorbing them one by one.
"This is what we saw on the same planet half an hour ago.”
This time the shooting was conducted with the aircraft. An army of replicators was advancing on the city of Asgard. The biorobots tried to defend themselves, but all their efforts were in vain. The attack of the replicators managed thousands of Asgard, wandering around the battlefield. At the same time, it was evident that all their movements and gestures with their hands were remarkably similar to the movements of their biological counterparts.
“I think you should bring these new replicators to investigate.” I suggested.
“We did. Here are the scan results.”
On the screen appeared a diagram of a typical asgardian, only instead of biological tissues and mechanical skeleton, this specimen was composed of replicators and the 'brain' of the computer, located in his prescribed head.
“They were able to hijack the biorobot's computer and reprogram it. All biological tissues were replaced by micron-sized Replicator blocks, and fidelity settings were made to follow the interests of the Replicator community.”
“You have a code of absolute submission.” I suggested.
“Yeah. It works, but if the computer starts trying to destroy replicators, then Replicator threw them away and returning to work according to the standard program.”
“Um... It's funny.” I’m summarized. “Asgards become replicators, and the replicators have become asgard. I suggest you to do nothing. Your bio robots are pretty stupid. They constantly lost to replicators in battle. I think if they start controlling the replicators, they'll only get weaker.”
“But it is now. Who knows what they'll do in a month? Even just knowing how our defense works has allowed them to win several important victories.”
“Yes, I perfectly understand the danger of such a union technology. But what do you want from me?”
“Can you give us a more effective weapon against the replicators?”
“I've already given you a lot. You have an important advantage over these machines - you have a soul. There is self-awareness and intelligence. This is your key to victory. Use the power of your intellect. If you are unable to defeat a weaker enemy, what is the point of helping you? Fight. Conquer! This is the only way you can prove that you deserve the right to life. The basic law of evolution: the strongest wins. Of course, if you lose and even your home world is on the verge of destruction, I will save you. But don't expect more.”
Loki haggard and looked at the video, where some robots are mercilessly destroying the other.
“You're right. This is our war. Long time ago the Asgards were the strongest race in the galaxy. We can do this.”
“Well, if that's all you have to say, I'm leaving.”
“Farewell.”
Loki sat up, closed his eyes, and concentrated on controlling his body's replicators. Through them he was connected to a network of Asgards, managing their compatriots. I glanced at him once more and then teleported back to my ship.