Don't Ask

[redbyrd_sgfic]

For aurora_novarum who said "I mentioned in chat it would be cool to have a fic from the janitor's point of view."

Gen, rated G, OC
Commentfic, unbeta'd, the SGC isn't mine, yadda.

Post Foothold:

Comments

[sg_fignewton]

They almost never blew anything up. That automatically made Bill more friendly to him.

::sporfles::

Gratuitous Rothman cameo! Yay!

"Oh, great," he said in disgust. "Don't tell me. Level 28?"

::giggles::

So, was "not as bad as last year" a reference to A Matter of Time or Serpent's Song? The former, I assume. Although it's surprising they don't redecorate the place more often - chances are it'll have to be redone before anyone who disapproves would have a chance to notice...

[redbyrd_sgfic]

Oh, A Matter of Time (that's why he works half a day and gets home two weeks late!). Did they trash the place in Serpent's Song too? I thought they just irradiated the gate... (Clearly I need to rewatch some of that season.)

[sg_betty]

Ha! Ufo's? That would be just silly! Little does he know! Great idea!

[redbyrd_sgfic]

Thanks!

Nobody sticks long in a janitorial job if they're really imaginative. I did it one summer in college and by about the third week, I was having blackouts, I was so bored. Clock out at the end of the day, and I'd have *no memory whatsoever* of anything I did that day. It was actually kind of scary.

[sg_betty]

Wow! That is scary! I've freaked myself out by getting to work and not remembering the drive there, but to lose a whole day! Yikes! Your brain probably shut down to protect itself from the sould destroying boredom...

[redbyrd_sgfic]

It surely did. However it was *highly* motivating to finish my degree and get a real job! (And it paid better than any of the other summer work I could find, because it was so awful.)

[aurora_novarum]

This was one of the guys from the labs with books and old shit, he thought. Roth-something. They almost never blew anything up. That automatically made Bill more friendly to him.

Hee!

Oh this is just what I was hoping for! So awesome! Knows offlimits means a bigger cleanup later. I love how the guy just goes about his job and figures that alien stuff is just silly rumors.

[redbyrd_sgfic]

Glad you liked...Clearly the janitorial crew has a lot to put up with. After all, they take staff weapon fire through the gate *all the time*...

[beatrice_otter]

Nice. When we're watching the show, we assume all the characters know everything we do--because how could they work in a place with aliens and not know it? So when we come across things like Rothman in Crystal Skull who doesn't believe them when they say there's something about that skull that might be a teleportation device, we tend to get upset with them--how could they possibly not know? You did a good job of making it plausible and realistic that the people not directly tied into the going through the gate daily know there's weird stuff but not necessarily how weird.

[redbyrd_sgfic]

Thanks!

Yeah, you don't really have a good feel for how strictly they practice need-to-know in the SGC, but there has to be some. And it has to be strongly discouraged to be curious about stuff outside your area if you're not directly involved.

I always wondered how soon Rothman found out about gate stuff and how much. In civilian companies that do defense work, they'll hire people but strictly limit how much they see until they've passed their security clearances- which can take up to 6-18 months. (Not surprisingly, it's a lot easier to get hired if you've already got a security clearance.) So it's possible Rothman had worked on only a very limited dataset before Crystal Skull. I've always figured it was partially that, and partially that Rothman was still finding it hard to wrap his brain around the idea that someone could talk about teleportation and be serious- especially when the item they're talking about looks like something ordinary, familiar and terrestrial.

Rothman

[beatrice_otter]

Rothman knew about the gate before Crystal Skull. Was he not supposed to be Daniel's replacement in Forever In a Day?

Re: Rothman

[redbyrd_sgfic]

Yes, he was, but a lot depends on how you feel that FIAD fits into canon. I believe the most common interpretation is that everything in FIAD except the opening/closing scenes are all happening in Daniel's head, and that's what I use in my fics.

Based on that, we can say that Daniel thought Rothman would be a likely person to replace him, which suggests that Rothman is working at the SGC then, and probably that he's either already cleared for gate travel, or is close to it. I don't think he's already a member of a gate team- in The First Ones, I had the impression that he travels offworld occasionally for projects but not regularly as part of a team. But hey, that's just my take. :)

[maychorian]

Hee! Interesting little look at the usually overlooked. You do excel at these kinds of fics. I like Bill's pragmatic attitude toward it all. It's just a job, after all, even if it has its weird spots.

[redbyrd_sgfic]

Thank you!

I figure the kind of person who makes a career of cleaning stuff is probably pretty down-to-earth. (So to speak!)