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[derigo.livejournal.com]

[Good evening, Tranquility. Or perhaps it's mid-morning, or the day hasn't been particularly good. Either way, there's a Wraith - or at least a Wraith from mid-chest and upward - staring down his nose at the comm device's camera.]

[Try not to panic. It's too much of a hassle to deal with.]

It would seem that even though so many humans here are of Earth, so few of you are familiar with each other. As an outsider, I can only wonder why this is. Even if your histories have branched out into several different timelines, there should be a common thread, a shared event in the distant past. There should be something that you share besides your humanity.

I cannot possibly imagine what this event is, especially if it occurred after the Lanteans returned to your planet ten thousand years ago. I do, however, know of one kind of device that they left behind on a number of planets in your galaxy and in mine. We call it the Portal, and some humans know it as the Ring of the Ancestors. The humans of Earth prefer to call it the Stargate. It is a standing ring made of metal - I believe it is called naquadah in your tongue - two times the height of a man, with thirty-six symbols around its inner edge. Two Stargates may link with one another, allowing one to cross great distances - even the expanse between galaxies - in mere seconds.

[It's a rather simple explanation, but it works well enough to just describe the device. Anyone who's seen it should know exactly what he's talking about.]

In my reality, Earth possessed a Stargate. I must wonder if, in these separated timelines, that other Earths also possessed Stargates. If so, perhaps that common thread among separate realities will have been found.

Comments

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[bearsthevision.livejournal.com]

There's nothing on Heaven's Fence like that. Sorry.

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

[There's an ever-so-slight change in his expression: narrowing of the eyes, furrowing of the brow. He is aware that there is a child on board, but he did not expect her to speak to him.]

A pity.

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[barkstabbark]

Except not all of us are from Earth, dumbass.

Or human.

[flapping his big crow wings at you]

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

[Well now, it looks like he's found himself a hotheaded punk to tease! Or dismiss, as the case may be.]

For my own reasons, I am only interested in humans, and particularly those from Earth. Unless you have something worthwhile to contribute...?

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[megamind]

The earth I'm familiar with didn't have one of those. Pretty sure I would have found out about it if it did.

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

I see. I thank you for your time.

[Well, this is disappointing.]

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[testgasm]

Ooh! Like...like a really big portal! Ours didn't have any metal, though. Just--just stuck 'em on the wall.

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

[Guide frowns, baring a few too many pointed teeth. He doesn't seem to be angry, however - merely puzzled.]

Would that not compromise the wall's integrity?

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[in-three.livejournal.com]

[Well aren't you looking like a Klingon that woke up on the wrong side of the bed. hoo, baby. there's a lot he could pick apart in this communication, but Jim flinally flicks on the video and is reclining quite comfortably in Engineering eating- something out of a wrapper god only knows .]

If there's something like that on Earth, we've never found it.

Sounds pretty high tech.

[like manipulating wormholes??]

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

[Bite me, flyboy.]

It seems to be a recurring theme.

The Lanteans were intelligent and powerful, but their power led to arrogance, and their arrogance to their undoing. When they abandoned Pegasus, they left behind a number of, as you say, "high tech" devices. The Stargates are merely the most common type of device.

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[of-two.livejournal.com]

I cannot speak for Earth, however, I know of no such device that existed upon Vulcan.

This stargate you mentioned, is it's purpose solely for interstellar travel?

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

I see.

Typically, yes. The humans of Earth in my reality occasionally use it as a means of intergalactic travel, but it seems that the Lanteans did not originally design them for that purpose.

( voice )

[unparental]

A 'stargate'.

[ it just sounds like a bad sci-fi movie. ]

( voice )

[derigo.livejournal.com]

[You'd best start believing in bad sci-fi, Ms. Sommers. You're in one.]

The device has many names, some more creative than others.

[statsraaden]

I've never heard of it. How does it work, a wormhole? [Stats is obviously interested.]

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

A rather lucky guess for not having heard of the device. Yes, the device creates an artificial "wormhole", as you call it.

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[constructum]

[ have one slightly unsure ariadne staring into the screen a moment, before finally speaking: ]

Can't say I've ever heard of a stargate. Interdimensional travel doesn't seem to be a thing my world is looking into. [ though she could be wrong. SHE'LL JUST ASSUME NOT THOUGH. ]

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

[Uh-oh. Apprehension. Not a good sign. Guide immediately shoots her a skeptical look.]

Are you absolutely certain?

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[anomalyse.livejournal.com]

[ +1 more aliens onboard this ship. That brings Connor's total count to... two. Who've retained their... alien-y... alienness. You're a bit creepy looking, aren't you? ]

a stargate?
haven't seen one. least not one that you're describing here.
36 symbols? you know what symbols they are?

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

The symbols are used to distinguish one planet from another. Each Stargate is assigned a unique combination of six symbols which serve as its address. The Lanteans chose the symbols, not the Wraith, and so whatever significance they had died with the last Lantean.

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[bostrumite]

We've got a Portal where I'm from, but I've never heard of a stargate or a "ring of the ancestors".

[text]

[derigo.livejournal.com]

I take it, then, that your Portal is not the same as the one I described?

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[soulbondee]

Never heard of it!

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

[Well, there isn't much that he can say to that, except that it's still rather disappointing.]

I see.

[consulting]

[ Another not human. Interesting. This ship was full of a strange array of people, he mentally started indexing them and begun filing them neatly for future reference. ]

Stargates would equate to your world's form of a 'car' then?
What does it use for petrol?

SH

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

If I had any idea what you mean by "car" and "petrol", I would tell you.

[The best he can do is guess that the latter has something to do with rocks.]

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[wiener-bonbons.livejournal.com]

...You've said something about "ten thousand years ago." Would you have any idea what year that would be according to Earth? The idea of alternate continuums has been suggested to me, but the event you mentioned has not yet occurred in mine. I was taken from the year 1955 A.D., using the most common calendar. My memory extends back to the year 976 on the same calendar, so... well, while it's still a fraction of time in comparison to the history you seem to have knowledge of, it's far more than the average human's, so there may be something in my memory that matches.

...I suppose I'm just curious if you're from the distant future from my point of view, or if there was another continuum running at the same time as my own. I just wonder how far two versions of the same "year" can deviate from each other. This is all very new to me.

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[derigo.livejournal.com]

[It takes him a bit to reply, if only because the Earth calendar is confusing - well, what he remembers of it from hacking McKay's computer. Why only count the last two thousand or so years, and not from the time of the first civilization?]

I believe that it is either late in the year two thousand and eight, or early in the year two thousand and nine. Atlantis would have been abandoned about seven thousand years before your time.

I'm afraid that even by human standards, fifty years is not exceptionally far into the future.