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
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.