Chapter Text

Ba'al's War

A gate opens. The Jaffa surrounding it stand to alert and point their staffs at it, ready for any threat that comes through.

The first wave of the attack is a small sphere thrown through the gate. It explodes in a bright flash and the Jaffa are hit by a wall of sound.

They do not even flinch. The first dozen times those infuriating humans had tried this tactic it had worked, but their god is powerful and has given them protection against such feeble tricks. To them it is just a bright light and a loud noise, and they are unharmed.

But the first attack was only a signal. When the bomb went off it also let out a radio burst, informing the humans on the other end that the Goa'uld still had not learned the trick of the iris.

The thick brown gas that billows through the Stargate shortly after would be a war crime if they were on Earth. But they are not on Earth, are they? That is rather the point of this whole exercise.

As the gas hits them, the Jaffa cry out in shock. Their skin blisters and their sight is obscured. Shortly after they start choking as their lungs begin to dissolve.

The third wave of the attack are wearing gas masks and full covering. A dozen men and women come through and quickly dispatch the incapacitated Jaffa.

They move into action. A stolen Goa'uld force field is put up surrounding the gate and its DHD. A covering is put over the top of the DHD. As soon the gate closes it immediately dials out again, and the humans run back through.

Shortly after, the device dials once more. Once the gate is open, it self-ignites, fusing to the top of the DHD with a magnesium white flame.

The gate does not close again.

Not long after that, relatively speaking, it is all over.

Ba'al was not having a good day.

The useful idiots of Earth had proved invaluable in his rise to power over the system lords, helping him vanquish his most powerful rival. They would have to be destroyed eventually - even without the threat of them becoming too powerful, their ancestors had killed a god. This could not go unpunished.

But for now, they were an amazing way to bypass the treaties that tied his hands. He couldn't teach humans technology, but they had discovered it on their own. No laws forbade him from making use of them in his wars.

But he was starting to suspect they were more trouble than they were worth.

When his spies had discovered where Apophis was hiding - a previously hidden industrial world called Kawawn - he had been ecstatic. Although he liked to think himself a reasonable god, there was really very little he enjoyed more than crushing his enemies utterly. It was time to win this war.

When he had been unable to dial the Stargate there he had been... troubled. Apophis was intelligent, true, but his was the cunning of politics and opportunism. He rarely troubled himself with technical matters, and it was unlikely he had figured out a way to stop incoming wormholes short of burying the stargate. That too seemed out of character for him.

When an enemy you thought you had understood more intimately than any friend behaves in a way you do not understand, you should be very afraid.

So Ba'al had sent a ship to the world to investigate. They had arrived at the planet and found an extremely troubling sight. He watched the destruction through the communications orb, and felt all his plans and ambitions crumbling down around him.

A Stargate opened to a desert world.

There was nothing but sand for miles around. Well, almost nothing. Sand, a Stargate, and a concrete box of obviously Earth construction.

Nothing came through the Stargate but a signal. Shortly later it closed.

Some time later, the Stargate opened again. Another signal came through, and the signal from earlier was played back in response.

General West, Catherine Langford and Daniel Jackson were sitting in one of the conference rooms in the SGC. They had gathered to see the message they had received through the Stargate relay network.

It was short and to the point.

"HUMANS OF EARTH. YOU HAVE DOOMED US BOTH WITH YOUR FOOLISH MEDDLING. WE MUST MEET TO DISCUSS WHAT WE CAN SALVAGE FROM YOUR DISASTER."

Daniel was the first to speak.

"So... do either of you have any idea what he's talking about?"

He pointedly didn't look at General West as he asked the question, but everyone around the table knew exactly what he was really asking.

"Doctor Jackson, the US military does not engage in 'foolish meddling' -"

"Really? Since when?"

"DOCTOR JACKSON, I have had EN-"

"Boys, calm down. It sounds like we have a serious situation on our hands and this is no time for your posturing. General West, if you know anything about what this is about, we really do need to know."

General West visibly reigned himself in and took a deep breath.

"Catherine, to the best of my knowledge, there have been no significant events in any of our recent offworld excursions. It's all been a matter of exploration. We haven't even found anything interesting in it. The most exciting thing that have happened recently is we've added two new uninhabited worlds to the relay networks and started laying the foundations for Echo base."

"Doctor Jackson, I take it from your reaction that the Abydonians have not been doing any additional exploration that might have prompted this?"

"No, not at all. The Abydonians really want nothing to do with the Stargate. They've come a long way in a very short amount of time, but they still see it as a symbol of Ra and are afraid he will return through it."

"So we're officially in the dark about this?"

Both men nodded.

"Well I guess we'll have to just send her in blind then. Terrific."

A Stargate opened. Through it came first a MALP, then SG-3, and finally once the area had been deemed secure, Dr Elizabeth Weir, official representative of Earth to the stars.

Ba'al was already there, surrounded by an honour guard of Jaffa.

The meeting was on a neutral planet, as per usual. They had exchanged keys, run the numbers, and this was the world the computer had spat out for the meeting. It was mostly uninhabited, save for a few scattered tribes and an awful lot of trees.

Dr Weir spoke first.

"Greetings from Earth, Lord Ba'al."

It always paid to be polite to the extremely powerful alien megalomaniac. Although Ba'al claimed to be different from the other Goa'uld, Elizabeth didn't buy it for a minute.

"Greetings, Elizabeth. I hope you have an explanation for me."

"Honestly, no. Your message was rather cryptic, and after some asking around we have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. We were hoping you could tell us."

Weir probably shouldn't have enjoyed seeing Ba'al gobsmacked quite as much as she did, under the circumstances, but you could only put up with so much Goa'uld smug superiority before it started to get to you.

"But it must have been you! No-one else would have been so foolish."

"What must have been us? I still have no idea what you are talking about."

"Someone has destroyed the world Apophis sought refuge on. No Goa'uld would have done such a thing, no-one else is at war with him as you are. It could only have been your people, using some left over technology stolen from your lord Disney."

For once Elizabeth had no problem keeping a straight face, but she still silently cursed Jack for that particular prank.

"Lord Ba'al, I assure you we have no technology capable of destroying a world. A city, certainly, but nothing on that scale."

Ba'al scowled.

"The system lords will believe that no more than I do. Even if it were true we would still be doomed."

"Forgive me, but I don't see the problem. Of course the destruction of a world is a terrible tragedy, but why do the system lords care? Apophis's fall has just made more room at the top for them, hasn't it?"

"Because you destroyed a world. You violated the treaty!"

"Wait, what treaty?"

"Do you think the Goa'uld have no such weapons? Of course we do! We all have such weapons! And that is why we do not use them. If we fought our wars with world crushers and star bombs then the galaxy would burn. And so we agree not to use them, and we agree not to bombard each other's worlds from space, and we fight our petty little proxy wars with Jaffa soldiers and staff weapons and by this means alone the galaxy is preserved for us to do with as we will."

Elizabeth's jaw was hanging slightly open. So many more things made sense now. The Goa'uld had always seemed ridiculous - a threat, certainly, with their starships and vastly more advanced technology, but a threat that was... hard to take seriously given their complete lack of military tactics or strategy.

But if all Earth had seen so far was them play fighting as a form of political power struggle then it was time to upgrade their threat assessment significantly.

"So you're saying that destroying a world violates some sort of strategic arms limitation treaty?"

"Yes. And regardless of who has done it, we will be blamed. It will achieve what almost nothing else could have - the Goa'uld will unite, and turn their combined forces upon us, and we will be crushed."