“How does it feel?” I asked Thor, looking at his knuckles in surprise.
“Very... This is weird.” The newborn got up from the lab table and walked back and forth. After that, he formed from his hand something like a claw, a can opener and a wild hodgepodge of manipulators, which would be the envy of any maniac vivisector. "Is life in the physical body always been so bright?"
Ummm... maybe, Did I again connected something wrong?
“You've been a ghost for years. I think you've forgotten what it's like to be alive.” I gave a plausible excuse.
“Yeah, that's probably it.” Thor agreed. “Are you able to resurrect my brethrens?”
“Easily. Gather them in one place, and I will bring them back to life one by one.”
Judging by the Thor’s words about 'brethren', he pretty much identified himself with his role in this game. Apparently his soul implanted to the astral shell of the real Thor that existed in the form of ghost. At the same time, the victim acquired memories and traits of the recipient. In a whole, similar to my case. I just implanted into a yet undeveloped goa’uld that allowed me to emerge stronger my true identity.
Then I held my usual event and create a reasonable replication of the ghosts. At the same time, the process of replacing the biological components of Asgard bodies was launched. However, this process was not so fast, because they are 'alive' only replicators, who has a soul. And this process was not fast and largely random.
"Thor, what do you plan to call your new race? Loki named his people as Jotuns.” I turned to the leader of the former asgards.
"Then my people will be called Asuras. Asgard is the city of the Aes. My clan was called Aes, which is the abbreviation of the ancient Asura.”
The Jotun against the Asuras? What's the world coming to? And those, and other in different religions are considered as demons. While demons fight each other, what do gods do? Drinking amrita and watching them, spitting from the clouds? Or gods in this world doesn’t exist?
After about a couple of months, Thor finished transforming all Asgards into Asuras. He quite got used to his new form of existence and even thanked me a couple of times for my help. However, I received from this scam of the century not only thanks, but also the valuable experience of creating new life forms. It was quite interesting to see how the initially primitive bodies of the Asuras over time acquire peculiar organs and complex structure, both on the physical and astral level.
Having mastered the new body, Thor has changed not only its appearance, but also the character. Now it was a vigorous, muscular, fat man with wheat hair, who ran everywhere with his hammer and beat them from time to time on the heads of the guilty. After that you can send the usual Asgards for recycling but the Asuras of 'Royal blood' only sweared in response while collecting their splashed brains.
The first thing Thor began to revive the economy and industry, building warships. In total, I 'brought back to life more than two hundred ghosts. Each of them received a personal ship with the most effective shields and weapons. All this time I was sitting on my ship, which was hanging out in the orbit of the planet of the Asuras, so their activities were not a secret for me.
Having rebuilt the fleet, Thor began expansion into the milky way galaxy. Since he was a game figure, he first of all devoted his actions to the performance of game tasks. For a start, he settled on planets that were protected by the Asgard under contract with goa’ulds.
Then he rushed to capture the planets of System Lords, but was faced with the problem of retention. Goa’ulds did not hesitate to destroy the planets, captured by a new enemy. I think they deliberately resorted to `scorched earth` tactics to show the futility of trying to free the inhabited worlds from their influence.
I was no longer interested in Thor's further tactics, because he transferred all his activities to the milky Way galaxy, and I remained hanging in orbit of Orilla. I had nowhere to hurry, so I waited for the key events, while doing my research.
The first evidence that something is very wrong, was when I decided to check the revolutionary activities of jaffas against goa’ulds. The problem was that all goa’ulds voluntarily accepted the power of Anubis, and now was desperately battling with Asuras.
The worms were only saved by the fact that Anubis has mastered many Ancient technology, so the battle in space was more or less equal. But Thor could not worry about sending his troops to the slaughter. The only crew member of any battle battleship was the one 'High Asur', for whom death was just a small inconvenience. And building a new such a ship took only a few days.
But that wasn't the point. The war cannot be won only by aviation. To capture the planets needed infantry troops, and Thor had problems with the creation of a large number of Asuras. Therefore, he went the other way, about which I personally did not even know until I saw in action.
The Asuras could control a finite number of Replicator blocks. But given the small size of these blocks, the numbers went to thousands and millions. Thor used this fact to create an army of terminators, where each robot had only one Replicator block as a processor.
As a result, one High Asur could control an army of millions of robots. It was worth a couple of landing ships to land on the planet, and robots scattered across its surface, destroying all enemies. Neither Jaffa nor the super-soldiers of Anubis could do anything about the endless stream of machines, which at every opportunity also began to multiply and repair each other.
In general, assessing this strategy, I came to the conclusion that Anubis not going to live long. Now he winning only due to a significant reserve of forces and the fact that the offensive forces of Thor were limited to the number of high Asuras.
Another important difference was that the Jaffa rebellion against Goa’ulds was much less ambitious. The reason was that the Thor didn't care if the Jaffa are free or servants of Goa’ulds. He happily destroyed those, and other, and all the supporters for one. Even with such a policy of genocide, it didn't have much effect on the number of people on the captured planets. After all Jaffa were millions, and mere mortals billions.
All these passions have not passed by earthlings who had his Jaffa in the composition of SG-1. Moreover, he was a close friend of Jack, which is now formally listed as King of whole Earth, and not the smallest piece of the galaxy. Using me as a scarecrow, Jack was able to fence off a couple dozen planets into his property, which no one dared to attempt conquer.
The first call was a radio call from Jack. He asked for my help in arranging negotiations with Thor. I scratched a turnip and promised that I would arrange everything.
And just a few hours later I was contacted by Loki, who asked permission to go to the milky way galaxy for negotiations on the reunification of the two branches of the asgards in one common civilization. I scratched my head again, puzzled, and promised to help with that.
I finished the current experiments and sent my ship to the milky way galaxy. Here I habitually entered the orbit of my planet, from which I had just begun my development in this world. To my surprise, there was already Goa’ulds Hat’ak in orbit. I immediately contacted him.
“Unknown ship, identify yourself. You are in orbit around my planet.”
"Greetings, Lord Imhotep.” I heard a familiar voice and saw a familiar narrow-eyed underage face of Lord Yu. “I am patroling this area to prevent the invasion of possible offenders.”
“Oh, by the way. Don't you want to take part in the negotiations with Thor?” I said the thought that came to my mind.
“In what role?” Goa’uld was taken aback.
“Well, we'll figure it out in place. As a representative of Anubis. Or as a possible defector under Thor's wing.”
“It... I will consider it more.”
“Nice. Then I'll contact you when time and place of negotiations will be clear.”
“Of course, my Lord. I really appreciate your participation.”
“Farewell.”
I disconnected the link and began searching for Thor. It was useless to search for him by way as I had found Baal. The mind-reading spell didn't work well on robots. But on the soul of each changed Asuras stood my label. QCD sign, so to speak. By this mark I found game figure of the Asgard in a couple of hours.
My ship came out next to the planet in orbit which was a hot battle. Two ships of the Asuras were opposed by five Goa’uld’s Hat’taks. At first glance, Asuras had a hard time. Their ships were full of holes, and their shields flickered, reflecting at best half the attacks. Here's a more detailed scan showed that the main battle going in board goa’uld ships. Each of them was the landing of replicators with the Asgard brains that are methodically taken out the equipment to malfunction. And even no one could stop them, because the first thing that the Asuras did was break the tightness of the hull, and then continued their sabotage activities in a complete vacuum. One and a half dozen super-soldiers of Anubis seriously could not change the balance of power.
“Hi, Thor.” I got in touch with the right ship. “Not distracting?”
In the picture of the video link, I could see the sybaritic Thor lying on a soft couch surrounded by beautiful womans.
“Not at all. These Goa’ulds absolutely dull.”
One of the shots hit something important inside Thor's ship. There was an explosion, and the ship broke into two unequal parts. But Asura's serene face showed no signs of worry.
“Here representatives of several civilizations have expressed a desire to negotiate with you.”
“For what purpose?” Thor asked, taking a more direct position.
“No idea.” I disowned him. “It is difficult for me to say how and what they are going to convince you, but in my opinion the idea of negotiations makes sense. You will be able to inform all interested parties in a neutral atmosphere what awaits them in the near future.”
“Yeah, that's interesting. Where and when?
“I think in a couple of days. I need to prepare a meeting place and organize the presence of all parties.”
“Nice. Contact me when you're ready.”
“See you soon.”
I disconnected the link and winced. Something this Thor utterly brazen. I'll have to give him some nice surprises.
The meeting of the criminal bigwigs of the galaxy took place on one of the neutral planets, where I built a Palace specifically for this event. Through magic and Ancient technology it was easy-peasy. The meeting itself was to be held in a large hall, the edges of which were alcoves, where it was possible to discuss something in a private setting.
Participants were to arrive at the meeting through the gate, the address of which I sent out half an hour before the event. The Earthmens arrived first. Their embassy consisted of the SG-1 team, including Jack O'neill. Along with them came jaffa Bratak, as a representative of the Rebels. The next came Loki, accompanied by several Jotuns. Then came Jacob Carter as a representative of Tok'ra. Penultimate has passed through the gate of Lord Yu with his permanent assistant. And finally, late for a couple of minutes, arrived Thor - the source of headaches in the entire galaxy.
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"Greetings, my friends.” The leader of the Asuras shouted loudly as he entered the hall. “I'm glad I have so many fans…”
On this his joyous speech has interrupted, because he saw Loki.
“Good to see you too, brother.” Jotun said with a mocking smile.
“What's he doing here?” Thor asked, looking for me with his eyes.
“He's here to talk to you.” I stepped forward. "Don't worry, everyone here is under my protection, so you have nothing to fear.”
“To be afraid of? I'm not afraid of anything!” Thor turned his nose up. “I just didn't expect to meet a traitor here.”
“You're the traitor, Thor.” Loki answered to this accusation. "You have violated the will of the High Council of Asgard.”
Loki held out his hand in a welcoming gesture, and Thor grabbed it, squeezing it as hard as he could. It was obvious Loki was higher than Thor half a head, but in response Thor was much broader in the shoulders. There was a creak of metal, and Loki's hand was crushed by the iron grip of the God of War. That's just the God of Cunning was not born sewn. His replicators began to corrode the limb of the enemy, turning it into sawdust. Thor tried to shake them off, and then threw away part of his arm to prevent his destruction. I was sure that in a couple of minutes his replicators would come up with a way to deal with this scourge, but winner in first round remained for Loki.
“So, let's get started. First, I will introduce everyone present, and then you will state your claims or suggestions.” I began my speech. “Thor, leader of the Asuras. Loki, leader of the Jotuns. Jack, king of the Tauri. Yu, System Lord of Goa’ulds. Jacob Carter aka Selmak, representative of the Tok'ra renegades. Bratak, the leader of the rebel Jaffa. And me, Imhotep, God of knowledge and replicators.”
“Since when did you become a God of Replicators?” Loki asked.
“Since when I created the Jotuns and the Asuras.” I answered. “No more questions for me? Then I suggest to give the speech floor to the initiator of this meeting, Jack O'Neill.”
“Thor? Is that you?” Jack surprised, looking on muscular bearded man.
“Am I not recognizable?” The man said, swiping a hand through his hair. “I changed my hair style”
“Yeah... you've changed. All right. I'm not a politician, so I'll tell you how it is. Your beard doesn't suit you.” The audience froze, comprehending the essence of the claims. “And yet, we are not satisfied with your policy of total destruction in relation to Jaffa.”
“I'll take your opinion into account, but it will not change anything.” The leader of Asuras replied. “Goa’ulds and their minions must be destroyed.”
“But not all Jaffas serving Goa’ulds.” Bratak said. “We could be allies.”
“As long as you have goa’uld in your bellies, between us there unable be peace.” Thor rejected the offer. “However, there is a solution.”
“What a solution?”
“You can go through the transformation and become Asuras. I have already developed the technology of turning people into Asuras. Your personality, memory and soul will remain untouchable, while the flesh will be replaced by replicators. You will become immortal. Gain strength and power. What do you say, master Bratak?
Jaffa frowned.
“We're not ready to become robots yet.”
“Then you will die. Anything else?”
“If we remove goa’ulds from ourselves, you will cease to kill Jaffa?”
"If they accept my authority, they can live like any other people on my planets. But those who resist my troops will be destroyed every single one.”
Bratak and Jack looked at each other. The king of the Earth shook his head and gave me a sign that he had finished.
"I give speech floor to Loki, leader of the Jotuns.” I performed my function as a master of ceremonies.
Chief Jotun stepped forward and spoke in a stern voice:
"Thor, as the official representative of the High Council of Asgard, I urge you to recognize the authority of the Council and to come to our home world for a formal hearing on your case.”
“Forget it.” Thor waved hand, lounging on the throne. "There are no Asgard in your Council.”
“Conversely. It is now that the members of the Council are exclusively real asgards, not their soulless clones. You're great...”
“What's he talking about?” Jack whispered to me.
"The asgards you met earlier were computers with biological bodies. They didn’t has souls and acted according to the program enclosed in them, but these Asgards are replicators acting according to the call of the soul. I brought back to life the souls of the long-dead Asgards, and now they are divided into two camps, the leaders of which are Thor and Loki.
"I liked a lot better old version Asgards.” Jack grumbled. “They were much more cultured and kind.”
"I would look at you if you had to become a Replicator to stay alive."
“Won't they eat the whole galaxy?”
“No. Thor can't do it, and Loki promised me he wouldn't.”
Meanwhile, a dispute between two replicators ended with a Grand Holy Shit War, after which opponents ran to the corner of the ring, while everyone remaining in their opinion.
"The next word is for System Lord Yu," I proclaimed.
Goa’uld nodded and started talking, without leaving the chair.
“Why are you attacking us? Millions of people are dying because of your unjustified aggression.” Apparently communicating with people made Goa’uld to believe that someone might worry about such an illusory thing as the protection of rights and freedoms. Alas, these misconceptions were immediately dispelled.
“I don't care about people dying. My goal is the complete and final destruction of all Goa’ulds in this galaxy. You'd better ask your master Anubis about the reasons for such enmity.”
“So we can't even count on surrender?” Lord Yu said grimly.
“As long as Anubis is alive, it's basically impossible, and he, as far as I know, is immortal.”
Goa’uld irritably waved his hand, indicating that he had finished speaking.
“The representative of Tok’ra Salmak.”
Jacob Carter was not too lazy to get up and go out into the center of the room, staring Thor in the eye.
“I represent the Tok'ra Alliance. We unite symbionts and people who share a common belief about the possibility of mutually beneficial cooperation between our races. We would like to suggest that you cease hostilities and resolve all differences peacefully at the negotiating table. Unlike goa’ulds, we tend to solve all the contradictions of the world, I...
“Not interested!” Thor interrupted, slapping the hammer against the palm of his left hand. "I don't care who you are or what your beliefs are. While you have serpent in your head or in guts, then I want only your death. Do you want to solve everything in peace? Then kill yourself peacefully. As long as Anubis is alive, talking about peace makes no sense.”
“Why Anubis? He's not even goa’uld from a technical point of view.” Selmak protested, taking control of the body.
“Ask him. I do not intend to comment on this.”
Jacob flashed his eyes and returned to his seat.
“Well, it seems that everyone was able to express their claims.” I concluded. "Thor, do you have something to say to everyone present?"
“Yes!” Thor leapt to his feet and raised his hammer to the sky. "I am Thor, Lord of the Asuras. This entire galaxy will submit to my authority, and all those who disagree will die.”
With that fiery speech, he turned and walked away, heading straight for the Stargate.
“Um... it was a little unexpected.” I scratched my head, addressing the rest of the audience. “But you can keep talking. Over there is a buffet where everyone can find something tasty for themselves.”
Loki immediately got up and headed for the meals. The others looked at each other and either followed to the table or started talking quietly.
Overall, this meeting proved to be quite clueless due to the intransigence of the Thor. And it was even understandable. While the others suffered heavy losses, he had not lost anything since the beginning of the war. At least, all high Asuras were immortal, and ordinary members of society could be produced in unlimited quantities.
I went to Loki, who was looking at the various dishes with interest.
“I recommend fried salmon and nuts from trinium.” I pointed to two 'dishes'. And if one was quite ordinary, the second was a deep plate filled with nuts with a diameter of one centimeter.
“Trinium?” Loki then threw a handful of nuts in his mouth and began loudly crunching them, processing it to blocks of replicators. “Not bad. Why do you offer fish?”
“Well, it's the national dish of the Vikings and the Asgard. Fish, beer and cheese with barley cakes.”
"To be honest, I don't remember what we ate when we were living asgards. The clone felt that this information did not need. He himself ate horrible surrogates. And I have for thirty thousands of years, too much of memory has been erased.”
"Why did you even think of bringing Thor back under your authority?"
“It's not me, the Council want. All of them can't wait to return to 'former glory'. But now I will provide them with proof that Thor is not eager to return to their society. Moreover, we are not compatible even at the level of replicators. He has another model.”
“Yeah, I redid some stuff. Okay, let me know when you want to come back. Open the gates to your galaxy.”
I stepped aside, and Jack rolled up to me in the company of Teal and Bratak.
"Imhotep, can you give us a weapon against the replicators? Well, you know, like the gun you gave me? We tried it, but it doesn't work on the Asuras.”
“It doesn't work at all. It's a toy.” I stunned him. “As for weapons... I need to think.”
I thought and created another gun of avant-garde design. This time it was an honest device, working on the technology of the Ancients. As in the Canon, it broke the link between the Replicator blocks, changing the quantum integrity of their program.
“Take.” I handed the machine-gun to Jack. “Maybe you can replicate this device.”
“Thank You.”
The king of the Earth began to examine the 'gun'. To him immediately tightened Samantha interested in technical innovation. Jack started to aim, aiming weapon to Jotuns.
“Be careful.” I am besieged it. “You may shoot to death all guest.”
He sighed ruefully and hung his weapon over his shoulder.
No other significant events happened at this event. The people conferred, swore at each other and peacefully dispersed.
In general, the plot of the whole story has not changed fundamentally. Instead of wild replicators on attack there was 'domesticated' replicators managed Thor. They were less aggressive, and the threat of destruction hung over the army of Anubis and not so suddenly.
But after a couple of weeks rebel Jaffas under the leadership of Bratak took over the temple on the Dakar. They were surrounded by the troops of Anubis, and he was taken into the cordon of Thor. In the center of this composition was Samantha Carter and her father Tok’ra, who was trying to activate the Ancient device in the emulation mode similar to my 'anti-replicators' guns.
The only weak link was Daniel Jackson. He had to be kidnapped by replicators to get the knowledge of the Ancients out of his memory, after which he had to ascend. And it was all very similar, because Thor had kidnapped him. That's just he did not arrange torture. Thor had a much more efficient technology for such purposes.
As Thor mentioned at the meeting, he learned how to turn people into replicators. For this purpose, he modified technology of 'transplantation' of consciousness, which copied the human memory into the Asgard computer. After that, replicators began to replace the cells of the human body. The soul associated with this body did not lose its attachment, and therefore became a 'part' of the new Replicator. At the final stage, all organic body was completely replaced by Replicator blocks, and a copy of the human brain was combined with a computer, where there was already a copy of the personality.
As a result, the soul could not leave the body at own will, as it could not do in life. That's how Daniel fell into to that trap. He didn't even have time to understand anything that turned into a Asusas, so Ascension process from natural death don’t treat him until the rest of eternity.
Without Oma Desala’s brainwashing it is difficult to expect self-sacrifice at the right moment from Daniel, so I decided to take this role. Moreover, the parasite has already got me with his whining about how urgently he needs to gobble up Anubis’s soul.
Goa’ulds troops already hovered over Dakara, like a kite over the lamb, as example, how would to destroy the rebel Jaffa without damaging the temple and the Ancient device, which was also required Anubis. Thor, having learned from Daniel's memory about this device, had the idea to capture it too, to study, and then to destroy.
Ba’al agreed with the Earthlings that will give them time to destroy all the replicators, after which they will have to blow up the ancient device to prevent Anubis destroy all life in the galaxy. He planned to win the game in such way.
And 'Hour H' has came. With the help of Ba’al, who connected all the stargates in the galaxy into one network of repeaters, the Earthlings were able to use the ancient device to destroy all the replicators. This is the moment I chose to appear before Anubis.
“Hello, brother. Already celebrating your victory?” I said hello, appearing behind Goa’uld.
“You!!! I will destroy you!” He shouted, rushing at me and flying away from the collision with my shield.
“What is it? As I remember, last time we met, we were almost friends.” I felt the parasite begin to try to break out of the seal again. He was itching to do.
“Calm down, or you can earn a heart attack. Relax, breathe slowly.”
“What do you want?” I felt a forces of the Ascended trying to influence me.
“Are you remember I told you that I know the plot of this story? Now, it is the time that you have to die.”
“You can't kill me!”
“I can’t. But it can.”
With these words I took off the retaining fuinjutsu seal and let the parasite to go out. It stretched its greedy tentacles, and tightly wrapped around Anubis’s soul, completely ignoring the presence of impenetrable protection from Player. The game figure of Goa’ulds twitched in horror, and in that moment I saw a label on his soul. It has a little different than Daniel's. If the Earthman has more like a stamped mark, this mark was more like a work of art. And the thought in it clearly meant 'don't touch, mine'.