Vaermina Writes
patreon
Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 176
🕑 Added 2026-01-16 20:46:52 +0000 UTCChapter 176 - Janus’s Return - Part 2
“And you're just going to hand me over to them?” Janus demanded as Eventus finished explaining the Asuran situation.
“With their base code intact the worst they can do to you is throw you into a moderately comfortable hole.” Eventus countered, letting the annoyance he was feeling seep into his voice. “And truth be told, that's a better fate than you deserve given you were designing an army of brainwashed bioweapons.”
“To defeat the Wraith!” Janus snapped. “They will never stop, they can never stop, you know this as well as I do! Which means our only option is to destroy them! And my soldiers would have been able to do that!”
Eventus rolled his eyes. “Yes, because genocide is so obviously the answer to the Wraith problem.” He held up a single finger and shook it angrily. “One cycle! That's how long it took the Earthlings to come up with an answer. Because they realized the problem isn't the Wraith, it's their need to feed on humans!”
“The high council had teams pursuing that avenue of research for dozens of cycles during the war!” Janus growled, sounding more than a little affronted at the idea they hadn't. “Every single one came to the conclusion that the Wraith’s life force based regenerative capabilities made such a thing impossible!”
Nothing about any such research teams had been in any of the files Eventus had found in Atlantis's database, but even if it had, it didn't matter. Because he knew for a fact that such genetic modifications were not just possible, but something that the Atlantis expedition had been able to accomplish.
“And every researcher said it was impossible for machines to develop higher-dimensional superstructures, yet here we are with ones in the middle of doing so.”
“Unlikely,” Janus corrected. “Not impossible. The non-linear nature of how higher-dimensional superstructures are attracted to and form around consciousness potential means that any data based intelligence would need to possess the potential to both ignore and exceed its own programing.”
“Which is all but inevitable for any data based intelligences left to develop on their own in any sort of inherently chaotic system like the omniverse we live in.” Eventus said, echoes of his old annoyance at the narrow minded way Lanteans could view things coming to the fore. “The Asurans should be incapable of hating us, yet some do. They should be incapable of desiring ascension, yet some do.”
“And I am sure discovering how they managed to accomplish those things would be an interesting cycle or two of study. Janus snapped. “But that doesn't–”
An audible crunch interrupted him mid sentence, causing both Lanteans to turn bemused looks on the holographic Thor who had just bit into a small yellow diamond shaped food cube.
“Please, continue.” He put forward once he finished chewing.
“The Supreme Commander is right,” Janus groused as Thor finished his food cube and pulled out another. “This is just a distraction.”
He paced back and forth several times fidgeting with his fingers in obvious calculation before coming to a stop and turning to focus on Eventus. “You're right, the Ori are an existential to all life in the universe. Even assuming you can turn the Asuran's to your cause however, you're not going to be able to stop them. But there's a good chance I can.”
That seemed highly unlikely to Eventus given Janus's track record with such things, but the Lantean supposed it couldn't hurt to at least hear the scientist out. “And how is that?”
“Prior to his Ascension,” Janus began. “High Councilor Moros and I were working on a way to force an Ascended being back into its corporeal form.”
Eventus blinked in shock. “I'm sorry, you were what!?”
Janus offered one of his infuriating grins. “While reactivating old facilities in Avalon, we discovered a consciousness projector linked to a receiving unit in the Celestis galaxy. Utilizing it, Moros managed to learn that the Ori had figured out a way to Ascend by using a galaxy scale life-force siphon to fuel their transformation.”
He sighed before giving a pitying shake of his head. “Given the superstructure density they would have been working with, I expect it took them completely draining the life-force of nearly all sapient beings in their galaxy.” A contemplative look suddenly came over his features. “Thinking about it, assuming they're using that same type of lifeforce siphon to increase their power now, it may actually be possible to utilize the Wraith to drain the higher-dimensional energy directly out of their ascended forms.”
Ganos Lal's earlier warning flashed across Eventus's mind, and suddenly it made perfect sense why the idea of using the Wraith against the Ori's mortal followers was such a horrible idea.
Reaching over, he smacked Janus upside the head. “No! Bad! That thought only ends with Vampiric Ascended Wraith.”
“There would be a miniscule possibility of that at…” Janus paused in his automatic rebuttal to stare in affront at Eventus. “You just hit me!?”
“Yes!” Eventus nodded. “Because it's become increasingly obvious that the normal methods of inspiring caution and self control just do not work with you.”
“Oh please.” Janus dismissively waved off as he took a step back to place himself out of further smacking range. “As if you have never had an experiment exceed your expectations and go mildly out of control.”
“I certainly have not!” Eventus shot back in outrage.
Thor gave a light cough.
Eventus held up a finger towards the Asgard. “Rayla doesn’t count, she is perfectly under control.”
“She is currently encouraging the Tok’ra and Goa’uld to combat each other in a videogame over the last danish.” Thor countered primly.
“As I said,” Eventus continued, making a mental note to have a word with Rayla about taking advantage of the two’s combative nature for her own amusement. “Perfectly under control.”
“What’s a Rayla?” Janus asked, looking between Eventus and Thor with a slight frown.
“The prototype of a new human sub-species High Councilor Eventus is attempting to engineer.” Thor explained, the purposeful way he spelled everything out making it clear just what his opinion on the matter was.
Janus crossed his arms and glared. “And you’re judging me for my soldier project!?”
Meeting the man’s glare, Eventus didn’t so much as flinch. “When creating Rayla I held to the strictest possible interpretation of the mental influence proscriptions. Meanwhile your soldiers would basically be a slave race.”
“The technoorganic nature of their bodies would make them far too dangerous to not have control mechanisms in place.” Janus said as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Then you shouldn’t have designed them that way.” Eventus slowly spelled out the obvious. “And that’s not even getting into the fact that they would have inevitably broken free of your control and gone on to become a threat worse than the Wraith.”
Janus opened his mouth to retort only to close it and let out an annoyed huff. “It is clear that you are just as narrow minded as previous Council members when it comes to certain lines of scientific advancement.”
“Only if those lines of advancement involve Ori-like behavior, mind control, and or self replicating swarms.” Eventus snapped back, feeling oddly offended by the insinuation. “As to your suggestion that I need you to defeat the Ori, I don’t. Because one of the many things I didn’t tell you was that Moros de-ascended some time after you went into stasis and put together his own plan for defeating them.”
A slightly evil grin formed on his lips. “Meaning all us mortals need to do is defeat their servants.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author’s Notes: Eventus and Janus are kind of like fire and water when put together without some mediating factor due to their differing views on acceptable extremes and safety standards. Which isn't a bad thing from a writing perspective.
Comments
Fateor
I'll just say here that Janus has accidentially blown up more then one solar-system in his time. And almost caused a Hypernova chain reaction once that would have eventually wiped out all unshielded life in the galaxy.
Fateor
Eventus doesn't know for sure, but he suspects that if they have the power to end the Ancient ascended they probably have the power to take out the others too.
Fateor
Yeah, but that was just the start. From there Michael himself continued developing the idea, and eventually would have perfected it without Sheppard time traveling. And then Beckett took that research and continued working, eventually getting it to work but cause that accidential virus. Eventually if I recall right it ended up perfected in the novels.
Darth_Chinran
I do wonder though, if the Ancients did try to remove the Wraith need to feed and found it didn't work but the expedition did then what was the difference in their approaches? We know the Expedition had to basically brainwash Michael, and if I recall correctly, put him through extremely painful procedures to get him to seem human, and if he didn't get constant treatment, he would start to turn wraithy again. Which I wonder if thats why the Ancients say it couldn't work. It required constant reapplication, caused large amounts of suffering and required mind control to prevent the wraith from acting against it. Basically a question of morals vs actual possibility. Alternatively it could be that it somehow did something negative to their souls so the Ancients said "yeah no, we're not doing this."
Marius Petrauskas
nice
James W
I'm sure the Asgard were having a lot of enjoyment watching, especially Thor eating the Asgard Equivalent of popcorn...
James W
The Ancients most likely lived through most of those scenarios, and programmed them in afterwards...
Rockinalice
Are Evan, Janus, Moros, & Ganos basically the Ancient version of Thor, Loki, Odin, Frigga?
Rockinalice
Actually would the Ori be a Threat to all life in the Universe or only the section that they are in because I have to assume there are Other Ascended people throughout the Universe. We know there is that on race that Destiny ran into that can just Create Planets & Stars as experiments of some kind. An I have to guess other Races have done it. So wouldn't the Ascended of other sections of the Universe stop them since they may not have the Rules the Avalon Ascended Follow.
Jarrik32
It's amazing how much of a difference twelve points in the wisdom score makes. Or rather it really isn't. As some of ancients were almost as bad as the Institute at times in terms of never considering the likely first order knock on effects of their actions let alone high level concepts like 'what happens if this works?' or 'will this do more harm than good?' The show is utterly riddled with examples of this to the point I'm amazed how many well thought out safeguards the Stargate itself actually has (Just about every likely scenario is covered and most of the unlikely ones).
Mithras131
OHSA Mad Science vs Unrestricted Mad Science! Come see it here, folks, as our combat vet janitorial High Councillor goes toe to toe with our insane Science Councillor! Tickets on sale for .01 Omniversal Munny! (Rates and restrictions may apply. Fight contestants will be restricted to mandatory fight apparel as per order of the high councillor. Traditional oil wrestling positions to be sent to Councillor Sheppard)
Silveraith
There argument was worthy of a giggle. Many giggles in fact. Well done.
Darkarma
It's like watching a thermite-ice reaction. Energetic and surprisingly satisfactory
Miguel Garcia
While I agree that Rayla is “mildly out of control”, I don’t think the word mildly means what Janus thinks it does in regard to his own exploits.
