Dr. Daniel Jackson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hi_there_aliens) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trans_92011-09-16 12:15 am
hi_there_aliens) wrote in trans_92011-09-16 12:15 am
Archaeology, Natural Disasters and You [Closed]
The trip down revealed that Taleen was going to be of several things, none of which were pleasant. Arid, pale with a light dusting of red from the rocks, and yellow-white grass that extended in plains all the way towards far off mountains . There was a giant gash in the land near the orb landing area, which resolved itself into a massive canyon as the party drew closer. Spider webbing out across the top of the canyon were signs that a civilization had once flourished here. Traces of broken pillars and half submerged buildings, as well as what looked like a downed ship that had embedded itself in a massive building. There was no movement visible amongst the ruins now. As the dry wind blew through the stonework, it would became clear that they were walking into a mass graveyard.
Not somewhere you'd want to spend your vacation.
For some people, this was going to be a field day.
According to the scans and what little records they had, there hasn't been a sentient being around for hundreds of years. The majority of native wildlife had moved out of the area, seeking refuge. The land looked dead already. In the sky above, several specks of light twinkled in the sky, growing bigger with each passing hour. In a few days, it will be raining fire.
[Closed to Daniel, Eleventh Doctor, Sofia, Jamie, Hoshi, Howard, Billy, the Master, River Song, Cassie, Tom]
Not somewhere you'd want to spend your vacation.
For some people, this was going to be a field day.
According to the scans and what little records they had, there hasn't been a sentient being around for hundreds of years. The majority of native wildlife had moved out of the area, seeking refuge. The land looked dead already. In the sky above, several specks of light twinkled in the sky, growing bigger with each passing hour. In a few days, it will be raining fire.
[Closed to Daniel, Eleventh Doctor, Sofia, Jamie, Hoshi, Howard, Billy, the Master, River Song, Cassie, Tom]
no subject
"I don't think it's jammed," Daniel muttered under his breath. Jamming implied that it was blocked by a means that could be removed. They didn't really build these things to break when a pencil or quarter fell in. No matter what he thought of the Goa'uld, he'd hoped at least that a more technologically advanced race got past that point.
Malfunctioning maybe. Damaged felt better. He peered inside what was open. So far, he didn't see any arms or legs. No body. Daniel went to unload his pack and caught sight of Howard's legs. Oh yeah, he was still here. He began to rummage through it, looking for something he could use to feel around the sarcophagus without putting his arm in. Maybe it was broken, but why risk taking his hand off. Besides, he'd met his quota for that when he'd worked at the door switches. "It's supposed to open fully. I don't suppose you have a stick or anything I can use."
no subject
He's right. There are some twisted spars of what feel like metal a little ways into the crack, and in the dark it surprises Howard a bit that he didn't nearly impale himself on one of them fumbling and twisting his way around. They're thin, almost brittle, and when he puts his shoulder into twisting one it snaps off. He checks the length - longer than his arm - and breaks off another for himself.
When he gets back to the main chamber he seriously considers not going back to give Daniel the spar. After all, the first chamber had a mummy in it, and this one has something that might be supremely dangerous but busted in it. Not to mention that Daniel still hasn't told him what it really is or why he should care.
But some better part of his nature tells him to go back down there, and so he does. He walks up next to Daniel, still keeping as much distance as he can from the sarcophagus, and puts the spar in his hand.
no subject
Huh. What Howard came up with looked a lot like a metal spar. Some things did fall in line with his own universe. Similar but not quite the same.He wasn't going to complain, it would do the job. Daniel gingerly slid the spar into the gap and probed around the interior. He half expected it to bump into a body or something else any moment.
"Empty." Daniel announced. He carefully drew the spar out, taking care not to scratch it against the device, and dropped it on the sand.
no subject
Howard picks up the spar when Daniel drops it and leans it against a wall of the chamber. It also gives him an excuse to get a little further away from the thing, which Daniel has imbued with a pretty powerful sense of foreboding, even empty. He turns on his flashlight too, and curls it in the crook of his neck and shoulder so he can keep his hands free as he examines the hieroglyphics on the wall. They look Egyptian, of all things, but Howard's pretty certain his world history class never covered King Tut colonizing different galaxies.
"So, uh. You going to explain what a Gold Sarcophagus is or do I have to google it?"
no subject
Daniel didn't follow Howard or even look up at the walls. He remained firmly planted near the sarcophagus.
"I don't think you'd find this kind of sarcophagus online. Ordinarily, a sarcophagus is used to house remains," he was about to add the origin of the word, its break down in Greek, but decided against it. Howard hadn't reacted well to the actual mummy in the other room. He probably didn't want to know that sarcophagus ended up generally translating as 'flesh-eating stone'. "Or they might act as the outer layer of protection for a series of coffins inside. Kind of like a matryoshka doll?"
Howard had to have seen those Russian dolls at least once in his life, the ones that you stacked inside each other and got smaller. It was like that. But not really.
"This is a Goa'uld sarcophagus. It's used to heal injuries or bring the dead back to life." Daniel explained. He looked at the lid. It still remained where it was, jammed. Daniel leaned over, pressed another hieroglyph and stepped back. The room hummed again. The inner lid closed. "You put someone who recently died inside, seal the lid, and the sarcophagus would heal them. I don't know how long the process takes."
no subject
Howard doesn't even try to pronounce the Russian, but he gets the idea. "A nesting doll? Were the coffins inside getting really beat up without them?" He always thought coffins were supposed to protect the body inside, not be protected on their own.
His eyes widen when Daniel explains the significance of this particular sarcophagus. There's no way. There's no way. "You're kidding, right? I mean, I've seen people come back from the dead but there's no way to really bring someone back, right? Like, without their brains turning into scrambled eggs? You're...making that up, right?"
Not that he's exactly chomping at the bit to see a demonstration.
no subject
"A number of reasons. Protection from the elements, protection from thieves," although if you had a really determined grave robber, one little sarcophagus wasn't going to stop them. "Ceremonial."
That pulled Howard's attention away from the wall. Daniel looked up. Did he look like he was kidding? If he was full of shit on this subject, for one, he wouldn't be standing here. Sha're would be dead instead of a host. "No. As far as I know, there's no adverse effects. But we haven't had a chance to study one of these in depth, so I don't know."
No guards, no traps, just a malfunctioning sarcophagus on a dead planet. The SGC would have loved to get a hand one this. There was no way he could leave the device here. It was going up to Stacy if he had any say about it.
no subject
Howard thinks a lot about death. Fear of it, mostly. Not because it's unknown, but because it's final, or at least, should be. It hasn't been, he knows. Drake and Brittney seemed to come back mostly fine (if with 50% less body and 100% more homicidal crazy). Rory supposedly came back from the dead and he even acts like a normal person. But the idea that revival can be done to someone, rather than being the whims of chance or malevolent all-powerful forces, the product of a machine and not some inherent specialness of the deceased, is not one Howard's spent a lot of time on.
Mostly he thinks of death as the end of something. The point of no return, the decision you can't unmake. And that's why, as tempting as it's been to just stop for a while (stop fearing, stop being angry and hurt), he's never committed to it. And has fully committed to escape whenever a near-death experience inevitably wedges itself into his schedule.
He inches up to it, close enough to touch, though he doesn't. He looks up to Daniel as if asking permission, but seeing the expression on Daniel's face, realizes that Daniel's seeing this beyond its capacity for eternal life. You don't regard a miracle machine with hostility unless you have a reason to fear and hate it.
"Why would it be here? Why not in, I don't know, a space hospital or some rich guy's bunker or someplace that isn't a secret room in an abandoned, doomed temple?"
no subject
He didn't know why one actually hid such a valuable possession here. Maybe they were losing. Or maybe they thought they were coming back, or they had won temporarily, and started to convert the tower. Daniel put a hand on the lid. It felt just as cold as Ra's had. A current of energy through it, he always thought it like a pulse and vaguely threatening, but cold like the dead. Even if this thing saved their lives, there was always something disquieting about these things.
"Goa'uld don't use these for the good of the people. They use it for themselves. Maybe they can prolong their lives."
He suffered a sick thought. Sometimes Daniel wished he lacked an imagination, since it wasn't doing him any good right now. To this day, he wasn't sure just what Ra had intended to do with him if he'd actually obeyed his command or Ra had recaptured him. Now Daniel had at least one more idea. "Or a form of torture. You could kill someone, revive them, and kill them again. It wouldn't end."
no subject
He ran into Iniss once, and while the guy hadn't seemed like the type to torture people by killing them over and over for fun, one person is rarely representative of an entire species. And every young comic book geek knows Skrulls are generally bad news.
"That's sick." Genuine horror and disgust drips from Howard's voice. The picture Daniel just painted isn't one Howard can envision without feeling some level of nausea. It's a complete bastardization of what life and death are supposed to be. Where that finality, that relief of blessed ending, when they just keep pulling you back to life?
But thinking about that isn't going to do anything but fill him up with more nightmares, so he turns his mind to more practical matters. "You think Eneesh's crew'll be able to handle getting it up and out of here?"
no subject
"Both," he said. Howard knew of the Yeerks? Maybe he knew Eva. Or Jara. Maybe there were more hosts on board. Maybe there even infested humans. "I guess like the Yeerks, but they're about this long," Daniel roughly showed the length of one between two hands, about as long as a forearm. Definitely not small like one of Jara's Yeerk slug shapes. "They enter through the back of your neck and wrap around your spinal cord, then weave filaments into the brain."
He moved his hand off the device. "I think so. It's not bolted down, just heavy."
no subject
He doesn't know how to feel about the sarcophagus, but rather suddenly he's feeling the closeness of the walls in the chamber. Feeling that mummy staring into space one room over. Feeling like he can hear the water in the pipes from a civilization long dead running through the floor and from the tower.
It's a miracle machine.
It's a torture device.
What would happen if they put the mummy in the other room in here? What would it feel like to be the one in the sarcophagus? Rory told him death was unimaginably painful, but wouldn't it get duller over time, the way hunger pains do? Or is it more immense than that?
He needs air. "I'll go up and tell Eneesh. I need to stretch my legs anyway. Need sunlight, you know. Vitamin D and all." Without asking Daniel's permission, he leaves, taking his metal spar and flashlight with him.